MRS.  ALFRED 


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HOME    LIFE    IN    GERMANY 


BV  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

THE  KINSMAN 

THE  PROFESSOR'S  LEGACY 
THE  BERYL  STONES 
THE  THOUSAND  EUGENIAS 
CYNTHIA'S  WAY 
THE  INNER  SHRINE 
COUSIN  Ivo 

A  WOMAN  WITH  A  FUTURE 
THE  GRASSHOPPERS 
MRS.  FINCH-BRASSEY 
LESSER'S  DAUGHTER 
A  SPLENDID  COUSIN 
ISAAC  ELLER'S  MONEY 


YOUNG   GERMANY 

l-'KOM     I  HE    I'AINTINCi    I>V    C.    HKK'TKL 


HOME  LIFE  IN 
GERMANY 

BY 

MRS.  ALFRED  SIDGWICK 


WITH   SIXTEEN   ILLUSTRATIONS 


SECOND   EDITION 


NEW    YORK 
THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

1909 


First  Published    .     .     May  /<yo8 
Second  Edition     .        June  iqoS 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.  INTRODUCTORY          .....       i 
II.  CHILDREN       ......       7 

III.  SCHOOLS          .          .          .  .  .  .15 

IV.  THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  POOR  .  .  .28 
V.  THE  BACKFISCH         .           .  .  .  .36 

VI.  THE  STUDENT            .           .  .  .  .47 

VII.  RIEHL  ON  WOMEN     .           .  .  .  -59 

VIII.  THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW     .  .  .  .68 

IX.  GIRLHOOD        .           .           .  .  .  .78 

X.  MARRIAGES     .           .           .  .  .  .92 

XI.  THE  HOUSEHOLDER  .           .  .  .  .103 

XII.  HOUSEWIVES    .           .          .  .  .  .113 

XIII.  HOUSEWIVES  (continued}        .  .  .  .123 

XIV.  SERVANTS        .           .           .  .  .  .138 

XV.  FOOD     .           .           .           .  .  .  .153 

XVI.  SHOPS  AND  MARKETS           .  .  .  .167 

XVII.  EXPENSES  OF  LIFE    .           .  .  .  .177 

XVIII.  HOSPITALITY    .           .           .  .  .  .196 

XIX.  GERMAN  SUNDAYS     .           .  .  .  .205 

XX.  SPORTS  AND  GAMES  .          .  .  .  .217 

XXI.  INNS  AND  RESTAURANTS      .  .  .  .225 

220886 


HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

CHAP. 

XXII.  LIFE  IN  LODGINGS  .  PAGB 

XXIII.  SUMMER  RESORTS 

VVTW   ™  •  .    250 

XXIV.  PEASANT  LIFE 

.    267 
XXV.  How  THE  POOR  LIVE 

XXVI.  BERLIN 

*  •  •      207 

XXVII.  ODDS  AND  ENDS 

.    307 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

YOUNG  GERMANY         ....  .Frontispiece 

From  the  Painting  by  C.  HERTEL.     From  a  Photo- 
graph by  the  Berlin  Photographic  Co. 

FACING  PACK 

WASHING-DAY  AT  THE  PESTALOZZI  FROBEL  HAUS  .      13 

By  kind  permission  of  the  Berliner  Verein  fur  Volkserziehung 

THE  SCHOOL  IN  THE  FOREST,  NEAR  CHARLOTTENBURG  .   34 

By  kind  permission  of  HASSERODT  &  Co. 

CONFIRMATION  IN  A  CATHOLIC  CHURCH     .  .  .40 

After  the  Painting  by  HERMANN  BEHRENS.    From  a  Wood 
Engraving  by  RICHARD  BONG,  Berlin 

BURSCHENHERRLICHKEIT  (The  Glory  of  Studentship)          .       50 . 
From  the  Painting  by  CH.  HEYDEN.     From  a  Photograph  by 
the  Berlin  Photographic  Co. 

BRIDAL  GARMENTS      .  .  .  .  .  .88 

From  a  Painting  after  H.  BINDE.     From  a  Wood  Engraving 
by  RICHARD  BONG,  Berlin 

A  GERMAN  KITCHEN  .  .  .  .  .  .134 

From  a  Photograph  by  W.  TITZENTHALER,  Berlin 

FREIBURG         .          .          .          .          .          .          .172 

From  a  Photograph 

COTTBUS  MARKET-PLACE  AND  TOWN  HALL  .  .174 

From  a  Photograph 

SOLDIERS  AT  MESS      ......    220 

From  a  Photograph  by  W.  TITZENTHALER,  Berlin 

DANCING  SCENE  IN  A  SWABIAN  VILLAGE  INN      .  .    228 

From  the  Painting  by  B.  VAUTIER.    From  a  Photograph  by 
the  Berlin  Photographic  Co. 

A  GERMAN  FORESTER  AND  HIS  WIFE        .          .          .    250 

From  a  Photograph  by  F.  MULLER 


viii  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

FACING   PACK 

A    PEASANTS'    WEDDING    PARTY,   WITH    BRIDAL 

WAGGON  IN  THE  BACKGROUND.          .          .  .269 

From  a  Photograph  by  AUGUST  SCHERL 
CIVIL  MARRIAGE         ......    270 

From  the  Painting  by  B.  VAUTIER.     From  a  Photograph  by 
the  Berlin  Photographic  Co. 

THE  ROYAL  PALACE,  BERLIN  .          .          .          .297 

From  a  Photograph  by  ALBERT  BRUNING,  Berlin 

CHANGING  THE  GUARD  IN  BERLIN  .          .          .          .300 

From  a  Photograph  by  F.  MULLER 


HOME  LIFE  IN   GERMANY 


CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTORY 

I  WAS  once  greatly  impressed  by  a  story  of  an 
officer  in  the  German  army,  who  told  his  English 
hostess  that  he  knew  the  position  of  every  blacksmith's 
forge  in  Yorkshire.  I  wondered  at  the  time  how  many 
officers  in  the  English  army  had  learned  where  to  find 
the  blacksmiths'  forges  in  Pomerania.  But  those  are 
bygone  days.  Most  of  us  know  more  about  Germany 
now  than  we  do  about  our  own  country.1  We  go 
over  there  singly  and  in  batches,  we  see  their  admirable 
public  institutions,  we  visit  their  factories,  we  examine 
their  Poor  Laws,  we  walk  their  hospitals,  we  look  on  at 
their  drill  and  their  manoeuvres,  we  follow  each  twist 
and  turn  of  their  politics,  we  watch  their  birth-rate,  we 
write  reams  about  their  navy,  and  we  can  explain  to 
any  one  according  to  our  bias  exactly  what  their  system 
of  Protection  does  for  them.  We  are  often  suffici- 
ently ignorant  to  compare  them  with  the  Japanese,  and 
about  once  a  month  we  publish  a  weighty  book  con- 
cerning various  aspects  of  their  flourishing  empire. 

1  Throughout  the  book,  although  I  am  of  German  parentage,  I  have 
spoken  of  England  as  my  country  and  of  the  English  as  my  country-people. 
I  was  born  and  bred  in  England,  and  I  found  it  more  convenient  for 
purposes  of  expression  to  belong  to  one  country  than  to  both. 
I 


2  HO&E'LIFE  IN  GERMANY 


e  '  of  '  these  '  bcpV  I  have  read  with  ardent  and 
respectful  interest  ;  and  always  as  I  read,  my  own  little 
venture  seemed  to  wither  and  vanish  in  the  light  of  a 
profounder  knowledge  and  a  wider  judgment  than  I 
shall  ever  attain.  For  I  have  not  visited  workhouses 
and  factories,  I  know  little  more  about  German  taxes 
than  about  English  ones,  and  I  have  no  statistics  for  the 
instruction  and  entertainment  of  the  intelligent  reader. 
I  can  take  him  inside  a  German  home,  but  I  can  give 
him  no  information  about  German  building  laws.  I 
know  how  German  women  spend  their  days,  but  I  know 
as  little  about  the  exact  function  of  a  Burgermeister  as 
about  the  functions  of  a  Mayor.  In  short,  my  know- 
ledge of  Germany,  like  my  knowledge  of  England,  is 
based  on  a  series  of  life-long,  unclassified,  more  or  less 
inchoate  impressions,  and  the  only  excuse  I  have  for 
writing  about  either  country  I  find  in  my  own  and  some 
other  people's  trivial  minds. 

When  I  read  of  a  country  unknown  or  only  slightly 
known,  I  like  to  be  told  all  the  insignificant  trifles  that 
make  the  common  round  of  life.  It  is  assuredly 
desirable  that  the  great  movements  should  be  watched 
and  described  for  us;  but  we  want  pictures  of  the 
people  in  their  homes,  pictures  of  them  at  rest  and 
at  play,  as  well  as  engaged  in  those  public  works  that 
make  their  public  history.  For  no  reason  in  the  world 
I  happen  to  be  interested  in  China,  but  I  am  still 
waiting  for  just  the  gossip  I  want  about  private  life 
there.  We  have  Pierre  Loti's  exquisite  dream  pictures 
of  his  deserted  palace  at  Pekin.and  we  have  many  useful 
and  expert  accounts  of  the  roads,  mines,  railways, 
factories,  laws,  politics,  and  creeds  of  the  Celestial 
Empire.  But  the  book  I  ask  for  could  not  be  written 
by  anyone  who  was  not  of  Chinese  birth,  and  it  would 
probably  be  written  by  a  woman.  It  might  not  have 


INTRODUCTORY  3 

much  literary  form  or  value,  but  it  would  enter  into 
those  minutiae  of  life  that  the  masculine  traveller  either 
does  not  see  or  does  not  think  worth  notice.  The 
author  of  such  a  small-beer  chronicle  must  have  been 
intimate  from  childhood  with  the  Chinese  point  of 
view,  though  her  home  and  her  friends  were  in  a  foreign 
land.  She  would  probably  not  know  much  about  her 
ancestral  laws  and  politics,  but  she  would  have  known 
ever  since  she  could  hear  and  speak  just  what  Chinese 
people  said  to  each  other  when  none  but  Chinese  were 
by,  what  they  ate,  what  they  wore,  how  they  governed 
their  homes,  the  relationship  between  husband  and 
wife,  parents  and  children,  master  and  servant ;  in  what 
way  they  fought  the  battle  of  life,  how  they  feasted  and 
how  they  mourned.  If  circumstances  took  her  over  and 
over  again  to  different  parts  of  China  for  long  stretches 
of  time,  she  would  add  to  her  traditions  and  her  early 
atmosphere  some  experience  of  her  race  on  their  own 
soil  and  under  their  own  sun.  What  she  could  tell  us 
would  be  of  such  small  importance  that  she  would  often 
hesitate  to  set  it  down ;  and  again,  she  would  hesitate 
lest  what  she  had  to  say  should  be  well  known  already 
to  those  amongst  her  readers  who  had  sojourned  in  her 
father's  country.  She  would  do  well,  I  think,  to  make 
some  picture  for  herself  of  the  audience  she  could  hope 
to  entertain,  and  to  fix  her  mind  on  these  people  while 
she  wrote  her  book.  She  would  know  that  in  the  country 
of  her  adoption  there  were  some  who  never  crossed  their 
own  seas,  and  others  who  travelled  here  and  there  in  the 
world  but  did  not  visit  China  or  know  much  about  its 
people.  She  would  write  for  the  ignorant  ones,  and 
not  for  any  others ;  and  she  would  of  necessity  leave 
aside  all  great  issues  and  all  vexed  questions.  Her 
picture  would  be  chiefly,  too,  a  picture  of  the  nation's 
women ;  for  though  they  have  on  the  whole  no  share 


4  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

in  political  history,  they  reckon  with  the  men  in  any 
history  of  domestic  life  and  habit. 

Germans  often  maintain  that  their  country  is  more 
diverse  than  any  other,  and  on  that  account  more 
difficult  to  describe :  a  country  of  many  races  and 
various  rules  held  loosely  together  by  language  and 
more  tightly  of  late  years  by  the  bond  of  empire. 
But  the  truth  probably  is,  that  in  our  country  we  see 
and  understand  varieties,  while  in  a  foreign  one  we 
chiefly  perceive  what  is  unlike  ourselves  and  common 
to  the  people  we  are  observing.  For  from  the  flux  and 
welter  of  qualities  that  form  a  modern  nation  certain 
traits  survive  peculiar  to  that  nation :  specialities  of 
feature,  character,  and  habit,  some  seen  at  first  sight, 
others  only  discovered  after  long  and  intimate  acquaint- 
ance. It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  no  one  person  can 
be  at  home  in  every  corner  of  the  German  Empire,  or 
of  any  other  empire. 

There  are  many  Germanys.  The  one  we  hear  most 
of  in  England  nowadays  is  armed  to  the  teeth,  set 
wholly  on  material  advancement,  in  a  dangerously  war- 
like mood,  hustling  us  without  scruple  from  our  place 
in  the  world's  markets,  a  model  of  municipal  govern- 
ment and  enterprise,  a  land  where  vice,  poverty,  idleness, 
and  dirt  are  all  unknown.  We  hear  so  much  of  this 
praiseworthy  but  most  unamiable  Wunderkind  amongst 
nations,  that  we  generally  forget  the  Germany  we  know, 
the  Germany  still  there  for  our  affection  and  delight, 
the  dear  country  of  quaint  fancies,  of  music  and  of 
poetry.  That  Germany  has  vanished,  the  wiseacres 
say,  the  dreamy  unworldly  German  is  no  more  with  us, 
it  is  sheer  sentimental  folly  to  believe  in  him  and  to 
waste  your  time  looking  for  him.  But  how  if  you 
know  him  everywhere,  in  the  music  and  poetry  that  he 
could  not  have  given  us  if  they  had  not  burned  within 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

him,  and  in  the  men  and  women  who  have  accompanied 
you  as  friends  throughout  life, — how  if  you  still  find 
him  whenever  you  go  to  Germany?  Not,  to  be  sure, 
in  the  shape  of  the  wholly  unpractical  fool  who  pre- 
ceded the  modern  English  myth ;  but,  for  instance,  in 
some  of  the  mystical  plays  that  hold  his  stage,  in 
many  of  his  toys  and  pictures,  and  above  all  in  the 
kindly,  lovable,  clever  people  it  is  your  pleasure  to 
meet  there.  You  may  perhaps  speak  with  all  the 
more  conviction  of  this  attractive  Germany  if  you  have 
never  shut  your  eyes  and  ears  to  the  Germany  that 
does  not  love  us,  and  if  you  have  often  been  vexed  and 
offended  by  the  Anglophobia  that  undoubtedly  exists. 
This  Germany  makes  more  noise  than  the  friendly 
element,  and  it  is  called  into  existence  by  a  variety  of 
causes  not  all  important  or  political.  It  flourished 
long  before  the  Transvaal  War  was  seized  as  a  con- 
venient stick  to  beat  us  with.  In  some  measure  the 
Anglicised  Germans  who  love  us  too  well  are  respons- 
ible, for  they  do  not  always  love  wisely.  They  deny 
their  descent  and  their  country,  and  that  justly  offends 
their  compatriots.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  English- 
man breathes  who  would  ever  wish  to  call  himself  any- 
thing but  English ;  while  it  is  quite  rare  for  Germans 
in  England,  America,  or  France  to  take  any  pride  in 
their  blood.  The  second  generation  constantly  denies 
it,  changes  its  name,  assures  you  it  knows  nothing  of 
Germany.  They  have  not  the  spirit  of  a  Touchstone, 
and  in  so  far  they  do  their  country  a  wrong. 

In  another  more  material  sense,  too,  there  are  many 
Germanys,  so  that  when  you  write  of  one  corner  you 
may  easily  write  of  ways  and  food  and  regulations  that 
do  not  obtain  in  some  other  corner,  and  it  is  obviously 
impossible  to  remind  the  reader  in  every  case  that  the 
part  is  not  the  whole.  Wine  is  dear  in  the  north,  but 


6  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

it  has  sometimes  been  so  plentiful  in  the  south  that 
barrels  to  contain  it  ran  short,  and  anyone  who  pos- 
sessed an  empty  one  could  get  the  measure  of  wine  it 
would  hold  in  exchange.  Every  town  and  district  has 
its  special  ways  of  cooking.  There  is  great  variety  in 
manner  of  life,  in  entertainments,  and  in  local  law. 
There  are  Protestant  and  Catholic  areas,  and  there  are 
areas  where  Protestants,  Catholics,  and  Jews  live  side 
by  side.  The  peasant  proprietor  of  Baden  is  on  a 
higher  level  of  prosperity  and  habit  than  the  peasant 
serf  of  Eastern  Prussia ;  and  the  Jews  on  the  Russian 
frontier,  those  strange  Oriental  figures  in  a  special 
dress  and  wearing  earlocks  and  long  beards,  have  as 
little  in  common  with  the  Jews  of  Mannheim  or  Frank- 
fort as  with  the  Jews  of  the  London  Stock  Exchange. 
It  would,  in  fact,  be  impossible  for  any  one  person  to 
enter  into  every  shade  and  variety  of  German  life. 
You  can  only  describe  the  side  you  know,  and  comment 
on  the  things  you  have  seen.  So  you  bring  your  mite 
to  the  store  of  knowledge  which  many  have  increased 
before  you,  and  which  many  will  add  to  again. 


CHAPTER   II 

CHILDREN 

IN  Germany  the  storks  bring  the  children.  "  I 
know  the  pond  in  which  all  the  little  children  lie 
waiting  till  the  storks  come  to  take  them  to  their 
parents,"  says  the  mother  stork  in  Andersen's  story. 
"  The  stork  has  visited  the  house,"  people  say  to  each 
other  when  a  child  is  born  ;  and  if  you  go  to  a  christen- 
ing party  you  will  find  that  the  stork  has  come  too : 
in  sugar  on  a  cake,  perhaps,  or  to  be  handed  round 
in  the  form  of  ice  cream.  Most  of  the  kindly  intimate 
little  jests  about  babies  have  a  stork  in  them,  and  a 
stranger  might  easily  blunder  by  presenting  an  emblem 
of  the  bird  where  it  would  not  be  welcome.  The 
house  on  which  storks  build  is  a  lucky  one,  and  people 
regret  the  disappearance  of  their  nests  from  the  large 
towns. 

When  the  baby  has  come  it  is  not  allowed  out  of 
doors  for  weeks.  Air  and  sunlight  are  considered 
dangerous  at  first,  and  so  is  soap  and  even  an  im- 
moderate use  of  water.  For  eight  weeks  it  lies  day 
and  night  in  the  Steckkissen,  a  long  bag  that  confines 
its  legs  and  body  but  not  its  arms.  The  bag  is  lined 
with  wadding,  and  a  German  nurse,  who  was  showing 
me  one  with  great  pride,  assured  me  that  while  a 
child's  bones  were  soft  it  was  not  safe  to  lift  it  in  any 
other  way.  These  bags  are  comparatively  modern, 


8  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

and  have  succeeded  the  swaddling  clothes  still  used 
in  some  parts  of  Germany.  They  are  bandages  wrap- 
ping the  child  round  like  a  mummy,  and  imprisoning 
its  arms  as  well  as  its  legs.  A  German  doctor  told 
me  that  as  these  Wickelkinder  had  never  known  free- 
dom they  did  not  miss  it ;  but  he  seemed  to  approve  of 
the  modern  compromise  that  leaves  the  upper  limbs 
some  power  of  movement. 

Well  -  to  -  do  German  mothers  rarely  nurse  their 
children.  When  you  ask  why,  you  hear  of  nerves  and 
anaemia,  and  are  told  that  at  any  rate  in  cities  women 
find  it  impossible.  I  have  seen  it  stated  in  a  popular 
book  about  Germany  that  mothers  there  are  little  more 
than  "  aunts "  to  their  children  ;  and  the  Steckkissen 
and  the  foster-mother  were  about  equally  blamed  for 
this  unnatural  state  of  affairs.  From  our  point  of  view 
there  is  not  a  word  to  be  said  in  favour  of  the  Steck- 
kissen,  but  it  really  is  impossible  to  believe  that  a  bag 
lined  with  wadding  can  undermine  a  mother's  affection 
for  her  child.  Your  German  friends  will  often  show 
you  a  photograph  of  a  young  mother  holding  her  baby 
in  her  arms,  and  the  baby,  if  it  is  young  enough,  will 
probably  be  in  its  bag.  But  unless  you  look  closely 
you  will  take  the  bag  for  a  long  robe,  it  hangs  so 
softly  and  seems  so  little  in  the  mother's  way.  It  will 
be  as  dainty  as  a  robe  too,  and  when  people  have  the 
means  as  costly  ;  for  you  can  deck  out  your  bag  with 
ribbons  and  laces  as  easily  as  your  robe.  The  objec- 
tion to  foster-mothers  has  reality  behind  it,  but  the  evils 
of  the  system  are  well  understood,  and  have  been  much 
discussed  of  late.  Formerly  every  mother  who  could 
afford  it  hired  one  for  her  child,  and  peasant  women 
still  come  to  town  to  make  money  in  this  way.  But 
the  practice  is  on  the  wane,  now  that  doctors  order 
sterilised  milk.  The  real  ruler  of  a  German  nursery  is 


CHILDREN  9 

the  family  doctor.  He  keeps  his  eye  on  an  inex- 
perienced mother,  calls  when  he  sees  fit,  watches  the 
baby's  weight,  orders  its  food,  and  sees  that  its  feet  are 
kept  warm. 

A  day  nursery  in  the  English  sense  of  the  word  is 
hardly  known  in  Germany.  People  who  can  afford  it 
give  up  two  rooms  to  the  small  fry,  but  where  the  flat 
system  prevails,  and  rents  are  high,  this  is  seldom 
possible.  One  room  is  usually  known  as  the  Kinder- 
stube,  and  here  the  children  sleep  and  play.  But  it 
must  be  remembered  that  rooms  are  big,  light,  and 
high  in  Germany,  and  that  such  a  Kinderstube  will  not 
be  like  a  night  nursery  in  a  small  English  home. 
Besides,  directly  children  can  walk  they  are  not  as 
much  shut  up  in  the  nursery  as  they  are  in  England. 
The  rooms  of  a  German  flat  communicate  with  each 
other,  and  this  in  itself  makes  the  segregation  to  which 
we  are  used  difficult  to  carry  out.  During  the  first 
few  days  of  a  sojourn  with  German  friends,  you  are 
constantly  reminded  of  a  pantomime  rally  in  which 
people  run  in  and  out  of  doors  on  all  sides  of  the 
stage;  and  if  they  have  several  lively  children  you 
sometimes  wish  for  an  English  room  with  one  door 
only,  and  that  door  kept  shut.  Even  when  you  pay 
a  call  you  generally  see  the  children,  and  possibly  the 
nurse  or  the  Mamsell  with  them.  But  a  typical  middle- 
class  German  family  recognises  no  such  foreign  body 
as  a  nurse.  It  employs  one  maid  of  all  work,  who 
helps  the  housewife  wherever  help  is  needed,  whether 
it  is  in  the  kitchen  or  the  nursery.  The  mother  spends 
her  time  with  her  children,  playing  with  them  when 
she  has  leisure,  cooking  and  ironing  and  saving  for 
them,  and  for  her  husband  all  through  her  busy  day. 
Modern  Germans  like  to  tell  you  that  young  women 
no  longer  devote  themselves  to  these  simple  duties,  but 


io  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

if  you  use  your  eyes  you  will  see  that  most  women  do 
their  work  as  faithfully  as  ever.  There  is  an  idle, 
pleasure-loving,  money-spending  element  in  Germany 
as  there  is  in  other  countries,  and  it  makes  more  noise 
than  the  steady  bulk  of  the  nation,  and  is  an  attractive 
target  there  as  here  for  the  darts  of  popular  preachers 
and  playwrights.  But  it  is  no  more  preponderant  in 
Germany  than  in  England.  On  the  whole,  the  German 
mother  leaves  her  children  less  to  servants  than  the 
English  mother  does,  and  in  some  way  works  harder 
for  them.  That  is  to  say,  a  German  woman  will  do 
cooking  and  ironing  when  an  Englishwoman  of  the 
same  class  would  delegate  all  such  work  to  servants. 
This  is  partly  because  German  servants  are  less  efficient 
and  partly  because  fewer  servants  are  employed. 

The  fashionable  nurses  in  Germany  are  either 
English  or  peasant  girls  in  costume.  It  is  considered 
smart  to  send  out  your  baby  with  a  young  woman 
from  the  Spreewald  if  you  live  in  Berlin,  or  from  one 
of  the  Black  Forest  valleys  if  you  live  in  the  duchy 
of  Baden.  In  some  quarters  of  Berlin  you  see  the 
elaborate  skirts  and  caps  of  the  Spreewald  beside  every 
other  baby-carriage,  but  it  is  said  that  these  girls  are 
chiefly  employed  by  the  rich  Jews,  and  you  certainly 
need  to  be  as  rich  as  a  Jew  to  pay  their  laundry  bills. 
The  young  children  of  the  poor  are  provided  for  in 
Berlin,  as  they  are  in  other  cities,  by  creches,  where  the 
working  mother  can  leave  them  for  the  day.  Several 
of  these  institutions  are  open  to  the  public  at  certain 
times,  and  those  I  have  seen  were  well  kept  and  well 
arranged. 

The  women  of  Germany  have  not  thrown  away 
their  knitting  needles  yet,  though  they  no  longer  take 
them  to  the  concert  or  the  play  as  they  did  in  a  less 
sophisticated  age.  Children  still  learn  to  knit  either  at 


CHILDREN  1 1 

school  or  at  home,  and  if  their  mother  teaches  them 
she  probably  makes  them  a  marvellous  ball.  She  does 
this  by  winding  the  wool  round  little  toys  and  small 
coins,  until  it  hides  as  many  surprises  as  a  Christmas 
stocking,  and  is  as  much  out  of  shape ;  but  the  child 
who  wants  the  treasures  in  the  stocking  has  to  knit  for 
them,  and  the  faster  she  secures  them  the  faster  she 
is  learning  her  lesson.  The  mother,  however,  who 
troubles  about  knitting  is  not  quite  abreast  of  her 
times.  The  truly  modern  woman  flies  at  higher  game ; 
with  the  solemnity  and  devotion  of  a  Mrs.  Cimabue 
Brown  she  cherishes  in  her  children  a  love  of  Art. 
.Her  watchword  is  Die  Kunst  im  Leben  des  Kindes,  or 
Art  in  the  Nursery,  and  she  is  assisted  by  men  who  are 
doing  for  German  children  of  this  generation  what 
Walter  Crane  and  others  did  for  English  nurseries 
twenty-five  years  ago.  You  can  get  enchanting 
nursery  pictures,  toys,  and  decorations  in  Germany 
to-day,  and  each  big  city  has  its  own  school  of  artists 
who  produce  them :  friezes  where  the  birds  and  beasts  be- 
loved of  children  solemnly  pursue  each  other  ;  grotesque 
wooden  manikins  painted  in  motley ;  mysterious  land- 
scapes where  the  fairy-tales  of  the  world  might  any 
day  come  true.  Dream  pictures  these  are  of  snow  and 
moonlight,  marsh  and  forest,  the  real  Germany  lying 
everywhere  outside  the  cities  for  those  who  have  eyes 
to  see.  Even  the  toy  department  in  an  ordinary  shop 
abounds  in  treasures  that  never  seem  to  reach  England  : 
queer  cheap  toys  made  of  wood,  and  not  mechanical. 
It  must  be  a  dull  child  who  is  content  with  a  mechan- 
ical toy,  and  it  is  consoling  to  observe  that  most 
children  break  the  mechanism  as  quickly  as  possible 
and  then  play  sensibly  with  the  remains.  Many  of  the 
toys  known  to  generations  of  children  seemed  to  be 
as  popular  as  ever,  and  quite  unchanged.  You  still 


12  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

find  the  old  toy  towns,  for  instance,  with  their  red 
roofed  coloured  houses  and  green  curly  trees,  toys  that 
would  tell  an  imaginative  child  a  story  every  time  they 
were  set  up.  It  is  to  be  hoped  they  never  will  change, 
but  in  this  sense  I  have  no  faith  in  Germany.  The 
nation  is  so  desperately  intent  on  improvement  that 
some  dreadful  day  it  will  improve  its  toys.  Indeed,  I 
have  seen  a  trade  circular  threatening  some  such  van- 
dalism ;  and  in  the  last  Noah's  ark  I  bought  Noah  and 
his  family  had  changed  the  cut  of  their  clothes.  So 
the  whole  ark  had  lost  some  of  its  charm. 

Everyone  who  is  interested  in  children  and  their 
education,  and  who  happens  to  be  in  Berlin,  goes  to 
see  the  Pestalozzi  Frobel  Haus,  the  great  model  Kinder- 
garten where  children  of  the  working  classes  are  received 
for  fees  varying  from  sixpence  to  three  shillings  a  month, 
according  to  the  means  of  the  parents.  There  are  large 
halls  in  which  the  children  drill  and  sing,  and  there  are 
classrooms  in  which  twelve  to  sixteen  children  are 
taught  at  a  time.  Every  room  has  some  live  birds  or 
other  animals  and  some  plants  that  the  children  are 
trained  to  tend ;  the  walls  are  decorated  with  pictures 
and  processions  of  animals,  many  painted  and  cut  out 
by  the  children  themselves,  and  every  room  has  an 
impressive  little  rod  tied  with  blue  ribbons.  But  the 
little  ones  do  not  look  as  if  they  needed  a  rod  much. 
They  are  cheerful,  tidy  little  people,  although  many  of 
them  come  from  poor  homes.  In  the  middle  of  the 
morning  they  have  a  slice  of  rye  bread,  which  they  eat 
decorously  at  table  on  wooden  platters.  They  can  buy 
milk  to  drink  with  the  bread  for  5  pf.,  and  they  dine 
in  school  for  10  pf.  They  play  the  usual  Kindergarten 
games  in  the  usual  systematised  mechanical  fashion, 
and  they  study  Nature  in  a  real  back  garden,  where 
there  are  real  dejected-looking  cocks  and  hens,  a  real 


t 


CHILDREN  1 3 

cow,  and  a  lamb.  What  happens  to  the  lamb  when  he 
becomes  a  sheep  no  one  tells  you.  Perhaps  he  supplies 
mutton  to  the  school  of  cookery  in  connection  with  the 
Kindergarten.  Some  of  the  children  have  their  own 
little  gardens,  in  which  they  learn  to  raise  small  salads 
and  hardy  flowers.  There  are  carpentering  rooms  for 
the  boys,  and  both  boys  and  girls  are  allowed  in  the 
miniature  laundry,  where  they  learn  how  to  wash,  starch, 
and  iron  doll's  clothes.  The  illustration  shows  them 
engaged  in  this  business,  apparently  without  a  teacher ; 
but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  children  are  always  under 
a  teacher's  eye,  even  when  they  are  only  digging  in  a 
sand  heap  or  weeding  their  plots  of  ground.  Each 
child  has  a  bath  at  school  once  a  week,  and  at  first  the 
mothers  are  uneasy  about  this  part  of  the  programme, 
lest  it  should  give  their  child  cold.  But  they  soon 
learn  to  approve  it,  and  however  poor  they  are  they  do 
their  utmost  to  send  a  child  to  school  neatly  shod  and 
clad. 

As  a  rule  German  children  of  all  classes  are  treated 
as  children,  and  taught  the  elementary  virtue  of  obedi- 
ence. Das  Recht  des  Kindes  is  a  new  cry  with  some  of 
the  new  people,  but  nevertheless  Germany  is  one  of  the 
few  remaining  civilised  countries  where  the  elders  still 
have  rights  and  privileges.  I  heard  of  an  English- 
woman the  other  day  who  said  that  she  had  never 
eaten  the  wing  of  a  chicken,  because  when  she  was 
young  it  was  always  given  to  the  older  people,  and 
now  that  she  was  old  it  was  saved  for  the  children.  If 
she  lived  in  Germany  she  would  still  have  a  chance, 
provided  she  kept  away  from  a  small  loud  set,  who  in 
all  matters  of  education  and  morality  would  like  to 
turn  the  world  upside  down.  v  In  most  German  homes 
the  noisy,  spoilt  American  child  would  not  be  endured 
for  a  moment,  and  the  little  tyrant  of  a  French  family 


14  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

would  be  taught  its  place,  to  the  comfort  and  advantage 
of  all  concerned.  I  have  dined  with  a  large  family 
where  eight  young  ones  of  various  ages  sat  at  an  over- 
flow table,  and  did  not  disturb  their  elders  by  a  sound. 
It  was  not  because  the  elders  were  harsh  or  the  young 
folk  repressed,  but  because  Germany  teaches  its  youth 
to  behave.  The  little  girls  still  drop  you  a  pretty  old- 
fashioned  curtsey  when  they  greet  you ;  just  such  a 
curtsey  as  Miss  Austen's  heroines  must  have  made  to 
their  friends.  The  little  boys,  if  you  are  staying  in  the 
house  with  them,  come  and  shake  hands  at  unexpected 
times, — when  they  arrive  from  school,  for  instance,  and 
before  they  go  out  for  a  walk.  At  first  they  take  you  by 
surprise,  but  you  soon  learn  to  be  ready  for  them. 
They  play  many  of  the  same  games  as  English 
children,  and  I  need  hardly  say  that  they  are  brought 
up  on  the  same  fairy  stories,  because  many  of  our 
favourites  come  from  Germany.  The  little  boys  wear 
sensible  carpenters'  aprons  indoors,  made  of  leather  or 
American  cloth  ;  and  the  little  girls  still  wear  bib  aprons 
of  black  alpaca.  Their  elders  do  not  play  games  with 
them  as  much  as  English  people  do  with  their  children. 
They  are  expected  to  entertain  and  employ  themselves  ; 
and  the  immense  educational  value  of  games,  the  train- 
ing they  are  in  temper,  skill,  and  manners,  is  not 
understood  or  admitted  in  Germany  as  it  is  here. 
The  Kindergarten  exercises  are  not  competitive,  and 
do  not  teach  a  child  to  play  a  losing  game  with  effort 
and  good  grace. 


CHAPTER  III 
SCHOOLS 

ERMAN  children  go  to  day  schools.  This  is  not 
to  say  that  there  are  no  boarding  schools  in 
Germany;  but  the  prevailing  system  throughout  the 
empire  is  a  system  of  day  schools.  The  German 
mother  does  not  get  rid  of  her  boys  and  girls  for 
months  together,  and  look  forward  to  the  holidays  as 
a  time  of  uproar  and  enjoyment.  She  does  not 
wonder  anxiously  what  changes  she  will  see  in  them 
when  they  come  back  to  her.  They  are  with  her  all 
the  year  round, — the  boys  till  they  go  to  a  university, 
the  girls  till  they  marry.  Any  day  in  the  streets  of  a 
German  city  you  may  see  troops  of  children  going  to 
school,  not  with  a  maid  at  their  heels  as  in  Paris,  but 
unattended  as  in  England.  They  have  long  tin  satchels 
in  which  they  carry  their  books  and  lunch,  the  boys 
wear  peaked  caps,  and  many  children  of  both  sexes 
wear  spectacles. 

Except  at  the  Kindergarten,  boys  and  girls  are 
educated  separately  and  differently  in  Germany.  In 
some  rare  cases  lately  some  few  girls  have  been 
admitted  to  a  boys'  Gymnasium,  but  this  is  experi- 
mental and  at  present  unusual.  It  may  be  found  that 
the  presence  of  a  small  number  in  a  large  boys'  school 
does  not  work  well.  In  addition  to  the  elementary 
schools,  there  are  four  kinds  of  Public  Day  School  for 


1 6  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

boys  in  Germany,  and  they  are  all  under  State  super- 
vision. There  is  the  Gymnasium,  the  Real-Gymnasium, 
the  Ober-Real  Schule,  and  the  Real-Schule.  Until 
1870  the  Gymnasiums  were  the  only  schools  that 
could  send  their  scholars  to  the  universities ;  a  system 
that  had  serious  disadvantages.  It  meant  that  in 
choosing  a  child's  school,  parents  had  to  decide  whether 
at  the  end  of  his  school  life  he  was  to  have  a  university 
education.  Children  with  no  aptitude  for  scholarship 
were  sent  to  these  schools  to  receive  a  scholar's  train- 
ing ;  while  boys  who  would  have  done  well  in  one  of 
the  learned  professions  could  not  be  admitted  to  a 
university,  except  for  science  or  modern  languages, 
because  they  had  not  attended  a  Gymnasium. 

A  boy  who  has  passed  through  one  of  these  higher 
schools  has  had  twelve  years'  education.  He  began 
Latin  at  the  age  of  ten,  and  Greek  at  thirteen.  He 
has  learned  some  French  and  mathematics,  but  no 
English  unless  he  paid  for  it  as  an  extra.  His  school 
years  have  been  chiefly  a  preparation  for  the  university. 
If  he  never  reaches  the  higher  classes  he  leaves  the 
Gymnasium  with  a  stigma  upon  him,  a  record  of 
failure  that  will  hamper  him  in  his  career.  The  higher 
official  posts  and  the  professions  will  be  closed  to  him ; 
and  he  will  be  unfitted  by  his  education  for  business. 
This  at  least  is  what  many  thoughtful  Germans  say  of 
their  classical  schools ;  and  they  lament  over  the  un- 
suitable boys  who  are  sent  to  them  because  their 
parents  want  a  professor  or  a  high  official  in  the 
family.  It  is  considered  more  sensible  to  send  an 
average  boy  to  a  Real-Gymnasium  or  to  an  Ober-Real 
Sc/iule,  because  nowadays  these  schools  prepare  for  the 
university,  and  any  boy  with  a  turn  for  scholarship 
can  get  the  training  he  needs.  The  Ober-Real  S chute 
professedly  pays  most  attention  to  modern  languages ; 


SCHOOLS  17 

and  it  is,  in  fact,  only  since  1900  that  their  boys  are 
received  at  a  university  on  the  classical  side.  They 
still  prepare  largely  for  technical  schools  and  for  a 
commercial  career. 

At  a  Real-Schule^  the  fourth  grade  of  higher  school, 
the  course  only  lasts  six  years.  They  do  not  prepare 
for  the  Abiturienten  examination,  and  their  scholars  can- 
not go  from  them  to  a  university.  They  prepare  for 
practical  life,  and  they  admit  promising  boys  from  the 
elementary  schools.  A  boy  who  has  been  through  any 
one  of  these  higher  schools  successfully  need  only  serve 
in  the  army  for  one  year ;  and  that  in  itself  is  a  great 
^incentive  to  parents  to  send  their  children.  A  Real- 
Schule  in  Prussia  only  costs  a  hundred  marks  a  year, 
and  a  Gymnasium  a  hundred  and  thirty-five  marks. 
In  some  parts  of  Germany  the  fees  are  rather  higher, 
in  some  still  lower.  The  headmasters  of  these  schools 
are  all  university  men,  and  are  themselves  under  State 
supervision.  In  an  entertaining  play  called  Flacks- 
mann  als  Erzieher  the  headmaster  had  not  been  doing 
his  duty,  and  has  allowed  the  school  to  get  into  a  bad 
way.  The  subordinates  are  either  slack  or  righteously 
rebellious,  and  the  children  are  unruly.  The  State 
official  pays  a  surprise  visit,  discovers  the  state  of 
things,  and  reads  the  Riot  Act  all  round.  The  wicked 
headmaster  is  dismissed,  the  eager  young  reformer  is 
put  in  his  place,  the  slackers  are  warned  and  given 
another  chance.  .  .  .  Blessed  be  St.  Bureaukrazius  .  .  . 
says  the  genial  old  god  out  of  a  machine,  when  by 
virtue  of  his  office  he  has  righted  every  man's  wrongs. 
The  school  in  the  play  must  be  an  elementary  one, 
for  children  and  teachers  are  of  both  sexes,  but  a 
master  at  a  Gymnasium  told  me  that  the  picture  of  the 
official  visit  was  not  exaggerated  in  its  importance  and 
effect.  There  was  considerable  excitement  in  Germany 


i8 


HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 


over  the  picture  of  the  evil  headmaster,  his  incompetent 
staff,  and  the  neglected  children  ;  and  I  was  warned 
before  I  saw  the  play  that  I  must  not  think  such  a 
state  of  affairs  prevailed  in  German  schools.  The 
warning  was  quite  unnecessary.  An  immoral,  idle, 
and  ignorant  class  of  men  could  not  carry  on  the 
education  of  a  people  as  it  is  carried  on  throughout 
the  German  Empire  to-day. 

I  have  before  me  the  Annual  Report  of  a 
Gymnasium  in  Berlin,  and  it  may  interest  English 
people  to  see  how  many  lessons  the  teachers  in  each 
subject  gave  every  week.  There  were  thirty  teachers 
in  the  school. 


SUBJECT 
Religion 
German 
Latin 
Greek 
French 
History  and  Geography 
Mathematics  and  Arithmetic 
Natural  History 
Physics 
Hebrew 
Law 
Writing 
Drawing 
Singing 
Gymnasium 
Swimming 
Handfertigkeit 


LESSONS 
PER  WEEK 

42 
112 
72 
36 
44 
56 
10 

20 

4 
i 
6 
18 

12 
27 

8* 
3 

502  J  lessons 


The  headmaster  took  Latin  for  seven  hours  every 
week,  and  Greek  for  three  hours.  A  professor  who 
came  solely  for  religious  teaching  came  for  ten  hours 
every  week.  But  most  of  the  masters  taught  from 
sixteen  to  twenty-four  hours,  while  one  who  is  down 


SCHOOLS  19 

for  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  gymnastics,  German, 
singing,  and  Natur  could  not  get  through  all  he  had 
to  do  in  less  than  thirty  hours.  On  looking  into  the 
hours  devoted  tc  each  subject  by  the  various  classes, 
you  find  that  the  lowest  class  had  three  hours  religious 
instruction  every  week,  and  the  other  classes  two  hours. 
There  were  407  boys  in  the  school  described  as 
Evangelise^  47  Jews,  and  23  Catholics;  but  in 
Germany  parents  can  withdraw  their  children  from 
religious  instruction  in  school,  provided  they  satisfy  the 
authorities  that  it  is  given  elsewhere.  The  two  highest 
classes  had  lessons  on  eight  chapters  of  St.  Paul's 
Epistle  to  the  Romans,  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Philippians, 
and  on  the  confessions  of  St.  Augustine.  Some  classes 
were  instructed  in  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John,  and 
the  little  boys  learned  Bible  History.  So  Germans 
are  not  without  orthodox  theological  teaching  in  their 
early  years,  whatever  opinions  they  arrive  at  in  their 
adolescence. 

Every  boy  in  the  school  spent  two  or  three  hours 
each  week  on  German  composition,  and,  like  boys  in 
other  countries,  handled  themes  they  could  assuredly 
not  understand,  probably,  like  other  boys,  without  a 
scruple  or  a  hesitation. 

"  Why  does  the  ghost  of  Banquo  appear  to  Macbeth, 
and  not  the  ghost  of  Duncan  ?  " 

"  How  are  the  unities  of  time,  place,  and  action 
treated  in  Schiller's  ballads  ?  " 

"  Discuss  the  antitheses  in  Lessing's  Laokoon." 

"  What  can  you  say  about  the  representation  of 
concrete  objects  in  Goethe's  Hermann  and  Dorothea  ?  " 

These  examples  are  taken  at  random  from  a  list 
too  long  to  quote  completely;  but  no  one  need  be 
impressed  by  them.  Boys  perform  wonderful  feats  of 
this  kind  in  England  too.  However,  I  once  heard  a 


20  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

German  professor  say  that  the  English  boy  outdid 
the  German  in  gesunder  Menschenver stand  (sound 
common  sense),  but  that  the  German  wins  in  the  race 
when  it  comes  to  the  abstract  knowledge  ( Wisseri]  that 
he  and  his  countryfolk  prize  above  all  the  treasures  of 
the  earth.  No  one  who  knows  both  countries  can 
doubt  for  a  single  moment  that  the  professor  was 
right,  and  that  he  stated  the  case  as  fairly  as  it  can 
be  stated.  In  an  emergency  or  in  trying  circumstances 
the  English  boy  would  be  readier  and  more  self- 
reliant  :  but  when  you  meet  him  where  entertainment 
is  wanted  rather  than  resource,  his  ignorance  will  make 
you  open  your  eyes.  This,  at  any  rate,  is  the  kind  of 
story  told  and  believed  of  Englishmen  in  Germany. 
A  student  who  was  working  at  science  in  a  German 
university  had  been  there  the  whole  winter,  and 
though  the  city  possessed  many  fine  theatres  he  had 
only  visited  a  variety  show.  At  last  his  friends  told 
him  that  it  was  his  duty  to  go  to  the  Schauspielhaus 
and  see  a  play  by  Goethe  or  Schiller.  "  Goethe ! 
Schiller  !  "  said  my  Englishman,  "  Was  ist  das?" 

The  education  of  girls  in  Germany  is  in  a  transi- 
tion state  at  present.  Important  changes  have  been 
made  of  late  years,  and  still  greater  ones,  so  the 
reformers  say,  are  pending.  Formerly,  if  a  girl  was  to 
be  educated  at  all  she  went  to  a  Hbhere  Tochterschule, 
or  to  a  private  school  conducted  on  the  same  lines,  and, 
like  the  official  establishment,  under  State  supervision. 
When  she  had  finished  with  school  she  had  finished 
with  education,  and  began  to  work  at  the  useful  arts 
of  life,  more  especially  at  the  art  of  cooking.  What 
she  had  learned  at  school  she  had  learned  thoroughly, 
and  it  was  considered  in  those  days  quite  as  much  as 
was  good  for  her.  The  officials  who  watched  and 
regulated  the  education  of  boys  had  nothing  to  do  with 


SCHOOLS  21 

girls'  schools.  These  were  left  to  the  staff  that 
managed  elementary  schools,  and  kept  on  much  the 
same  level.  Girls  learned  history,  geography,  ele- 
mentary arithmetic,  two  modern  languages,  and  a  great 
deal  of  mythology.  The  scandalous  ignorance  of 
mythology  displayed  by  Englishwomen  still  shocks 
the  right-minded  German.  If  a  woman  asked  for 
more  than  this  because  she  was  going  to  earn  her 
bread,  she  spent  three  years  in  reading  for  an  examina- 
tion that  qualified  her  for  one  of  the  lower  posts  in  the 
school.  The  higher  posts  were  all  in  the  hands  of 
men.  Of  late  years  women  have  been  able  to  prepare 
'  for  a  teacher's  career  at  one  of  the  Teachers'  Seminaries, 
most  of  which  were  opened  in  1897. 

More  than  forty  years  ago  the  English  princess  in 
Berlin  was  not  satisfied  with  what  was  done  in 
Germany  for  the  education  of  women ;  and  one  of  the 
many  monuments  to  her  memory  is  the  Victoria  Lyceum. 
This  institution  was  founded  at  her  suggestion  by  Miss 
Archer,  an  English  lady  who  had  been  teaching  in 
Berlin  for  some  years,  and  who  was  greatly  liked  and 
respected  there.  At  first  it  only  aimed  at  giving  some 
further  education  to  girls  who  had  left  school,  and  it 
was  not  easy  to  get  men  of  standing  to  teach  them. 
But  as  it  was  the  outcome  of  a  movement  with  life  in  it 
the  early  difficulties  were  surmounted,  and  its  scope  and 
usefulness  have  grown  since  its  foundation  thirty-eight 
years  ago.  It  is  not  a  residential  college,  and  it  has  no 
laboratories.  During  the  winter  it  still  holds  courses 
of  lectures  for  women  who  are  not  training  for  a  definite 
career ;  but  under  its  present  head,  Fraulein  von  Cotta, 
the  chief  work  of  the  Victoria  Lyceum  has  become  the 
preparation  of  women  for  the  Ober  Lehrerin  examination. 
This  is  a  State  examination  that  can  only  be  passed 
five  years  after  a  girl  has  qualified  as  Lehrerin \  and  two 


22  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

of  these  five  years  must  have  been  spent  in  teaching  at 
a  German  school.  To  qualify  as  Lehrerin,  a  girl  must 
have  spent  three  years  at  a  Seminary  for  teachers  after 
she  leaves  school,  and  she  usually  gets  through  this 
stage  of  her  training  between  the  ages  of  fifteen  and 
eighteen.  Therefore  a  woman  must  have  three  years 
special  preparation  for  a  subordinate  post  and  eight 
years  for  a  higher  post  in  a  German  girls'  school. 

The  whole  question  of  women's  education  is  in  a 
ferment  in  Germany  at  present,  and  though  everyone 
interested  is  ready  to  talk  of  it,  everyone  tells  you  that 
it  is  impossible  to  foresee  exactly  what  reforms  are 
coming.  There  are  to  be  new  schools  established, 
Lyceen  and  Ober-Lyceen,  and  Ober-Lyceen  will  prepare 
for  matriculation.  When  girls  have  matriculated  from 
one  of  these  schools  they  will  be  ready  for  the  university, 
and  will  work  for  the  same  examinations  as  men. 
Baden  was  the  first  German  State  that  allowed  women 
to  matriculate  at  its  universities.  It  did  so  in  1900, 
and  in  1903  Bavaria  followed  suit.  In  1905  there 
were  eighty-five  women  at  the  universities  who  had 
matriculated  in  Germany ;  but  there  are  hundreds 
working  at  the  universities  without  matriculating  first. 
At  present  the  professors  are  free  to  admit  women  or 
to  exclude  them  from  their  classes;  but  the  right  of 
exclusion  is  rarely  exercised.  Before  long  it  will  pre- 
sumably be  a  thing  of  the  past. 

An  Englishwoman  residing  at  Berlin,  and  engaged 
in  education,  told  me  that  in  her  opinion  no  German 
woman  living  had  done  as  much  for  her  countrywomen 
as  Helene  Lange,  the  president  of  the  Allgemeine 
deutsche  Frauenverein.  Nineteen  years  ago  she  began 
the  struggle  that  is  by  no  means  over,  the  struggle  to 
secure  a  better  education  for  women  and  a  greater 
share  in  its  control.  In  English  ears  her  aim  will 


SCHOOLS  23 

sound  a  modest  one,  but  English  girls'  schools  are  not 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  men,  with  men  for  principals 
and  men  to  teach  the  higher  classes.  She  began  in 
1887  by  publishing  a  pamphlet  that  made  a  great 
sensation,  because  it  demanded,  what  after  a  mighty 
tussle  was  conceded,  women  teachers  for  the  higher 
classes  in  girls'  schools,  and  for  these  women  an 
academic  education.  In  1890  she  founded,  together 
with  Auguste  Schmidt  and  Marie  Loeper-Housselle, 
the  Allegemeine  deutsche  Lehrerinnen-  Verein,  which  now 
has  80  branches  and  17,000  members.  But  the 
pluckiest  thing  she  did  was  to  fight  Prussian  officialdom 
and  win.  In  1889  she  opened  Real-Kurse  fur 
Mddchen  und  Frauen>  classes  where  women  could  work 
at  subjects  not  taught  in  girls'  schools,  Latin  for  instance, 
and  advanced  mathematics ;  for  the  State  in  Germany 
has  always  decided  how  much  as  well  as  how  little 
women  may  learn.  It  would  not  allow  people  as 
ignorant  as  Squeers  to  keep  a  school  because  it  offered 
an  easy  livelihood.  It  organised  women's  education 
carefully  and  thoroughly  in  the  admirable  German  way  ; 
but  it  laid  down  the  law  from  A  to  Z,  which  is  also  the 
German  way.  When,  therefore,  Helene  Lange  opened 
her  classes  for  women,  the  officials  came  to  her  and 
said  that  she  was  doing  an  illegal  thing.  She  replied 
that  her  students  were  not  schoolgirls  under  the 
German  school  laws,  but  grown-up  women  free  to  learn 
what  they  needed  and  desired.  The  officials  said  that 
an  old  law  of  1837  would  empower  them  to  close  the 
classes  by  force  if  Helene  Lange  did  not  do  so  of  her 
own  accord.  After  some  reflection  and  in  some 
anxiety  she  decided  to  go  on  with  them.  By  this  time 
public  opinion  was  on  her  side  and  came  to  her 
assistance ;  for  public  opinion  does  count  in  Germany 
even  with  the  officials.  The  classes  went  on,  and  were 


24  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

changed  in  1893  t°  Gymnasialkurse.  In  1896  the 
first  German  women  passed  the  Abiturienten  examina- 
tion, the  difficult  examination  young  men  of  eighteen 
pass  at  the  end  of  a  nine  years'  course  in  one  of  the 
classical  schools.  Even  to-day  you  may  hear  German 
men  argue  that  women  should  not  be  admitted  to 
universities  because  they  have  had  no  classical  training. 
Helene  Lange  was  the  first  to  prove  that  even  without 
early  training  women  can  prepare  themselves  for  an 
academic  career.  Her  experiment  led  to  the  establish- 
ment of  Gymnasialkurse  in  many  German  cities ;  and 
even  to  the  admission  of  girls  in  some  few  cases  to  boys' 
Gymnasium  schools. 

To-day  Helene  Lange  and  her  associates  are  con- 
tending with  the  schoolmasters,  who  desire  to  keep  the 
management  of  girls'  schools  in  their  own  hands.  She 
calls  the  Hohere  Tochterschule  the  failure  of  German 
school  organisation,  and  she  says  that  the  difference  of 
view  taken  by  men  and  women  teachers  as  to  the  proper 
work  of  girls'  schools  makes  it  most  difficult  to  come 
to  an  understanding.  Consciously  or  not,  men  form  an 
ideal  of  what  they  want  and  expect  of  women,  and  try 
to  educate  them  up  to  it ;  while  women  think  of  the 
claims  life  may  make  on  a  girl,  and  desire  the  full 
development  of  her  powers.  "  The  Higher  Daughter," 
she  says,  "  must  vanish,  and  her  place  must  be  taken  by 
the  girl  who  has  been  thoroughly  prepared  for  life,  who 
can  stand  on  her  own  feet  if  circumstances  require  it, 
or  who  brings  with  her  as  housewife  the  founda- 
tions of  further  self-development,  instead  of  the 
pretentiousness  of  the  half  educated.  In  one  ot 
her  many  articles  on  the  subject  of  school  reform  she 
points  to  three  directions  where  reform  is  needed. 
What  she  says  about  the  teaching  of  history  is  so 
characteristic  of  her  views  and  of  the  modern  move- 


SCHOOLS  25 

ment  in  Germany,  that  I  think   the  whole  passage  is 
worth  translation : — 

"  All  those  subjects  that  help  to  make  a  woman  a 
better  citizen  must  be  taken  more  seriously,"  she  says. 
"  It  can  no  longer  be  the  proper  aim  of  history  teaching 
to  foster  and  strengthen  in  women  a  sentimental  at- 
tachment to  her  country  and  its  national  character :  its 
aim  must  be  to  give  her  the  insight  that  will  enable  her 
to  understand  the  forces  at  work,  and  ultimately  play  an 
active  part  in  them.  Many  branches  of  our  social  life 
await  the  work  of  women,  civic  philanthropy  to  begin 
with ;  and  as  our  public  life  becomes  more  and  more  con- 
stitutional, it  demands  from  the  individual  both  a  ripe 
insight  into  the  good  of  the  community  and  a  living  sense 
of  duty  in  regard  to  its  destiny ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  foundations  of  this  insight  and  sense  of  duty  must 
be  in  our  times  more  and  more  laid  by  the  mother,  since 
the  father  is  often  entirely  prevented  by  his  work  from 
sharing  in  the  education  of  his  children.  Therefore, 
both  on  her  own  account  and  in  consideration  of  the 
task  before  her,  a  woman  just  as  much  as  a  man  should 
understand  and  take  a  practical  interest  in  public  life, 
and  it  is  the  business  of  the  school  to  see  that  she  does 
so.  Over  and  over  again  those  who  are  trying  to 
reform  girls'  schools  insist  that  history  teaching  should 
lead  the  student  to  understand  the  present  time ;  that  it 
should  recognise  those  economic  conditions  on  which 
the  history  of  the  world,  especially  in  our  day,  depends 
in  so  great  a  measure ;  that  it  should  pay  attention  not 
only  to  dates  and  events,  but  also  to  the  living  process 
of  civilisation,  since  it  is  only  from  the  latter  inquiry 
that  we  can  arrive  at  the  principles  of  individual  effort 
in  forwarding  social  life." 

Nowadays  in  Germany  Helene  Lange  is  considered 


26  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

one  of  the  "  Moderates,"  but  it  will  be  seen  from  the 
above  quotation  that  she  has  travelled  far  from  the 
old  ideals  which  invested  women  with  many  beautiful 
qualities,  but  not  with  the  sense  and  knowledge  re- 
quired of  useful  public  citizens.  She  proceeds  in  the 
same  article  to  say  that  scientific  and  mathematical 
teaching  should  reach  a  higher  standard  in  girls'  schools  ; 
and  thirdly,  that  certain  branches  of  psychology,  phy- 
siology, and  hygiene  should  receive  greater  attention, 
because  a  woman  is  a  better  wife  and  mother  when 
she  fulfils  her  duties  with  understanding  instead  of  by 
mere  instinct.  Nor  will  education  on  this  higher  plane 
deprive  women  of  any  valuable  feminine  virtues  if  it 
is  carried  out  in  the  right  way.  But  to  this  end  women 
must  direct  it,  and  in  great  measure  take  it  into  their 
own  hands.  She  would  not  shut  men  out  of  girls' 
schools,  but  she  would  place  women  in  supreme  authority 
there,  and  give  them  the  lion's  share  of  the  work. 

It  seems  to  the  English  onlooker  that  this  contest 
can  only  end  in  one  way,  and  that  if  the  women  of 
Germany  mean  to  have  the  control  of  girls'  schools 
they  are  bound  to  get  it.  Some  of  the  evils  of  the 
present  system  lie  on  the  surface.  "  It  is  a  fact,"  said  a 
schoolmaster,  speaking  lately  at  a  conference, — "  it  is  a 
fact  that  a  more  intimate,  spiritual,  and  personal  relation- 
ship is  developed  between  a  schoolgirl  and  her  master 
than  between  a  schoolgirl  and  her  mistress."  This 
remark,  evidently  made  in  good  faith,  was  received  with 
hilarity  by  a  large  mixed  audience  of  teachers;  and 
when  one  reflects  on  the  unbridled  sentiment  of  some 
"  higher  daughters  "  one  sees  where  it  must  inevitably 
find  food  under  the  present  anomalous  state  of  things. 
But  the  schoolmaster's  argument  is  the  argument 
brought  forward  by  many  men  against  the  reforms 
desired  by  Helene  Lange  and  her  party.  They  insist 


SCHOOLS  27 

that  girls  would  deteriorate  if  they  were  withdrawn 
throughout  their  youth  from  masculine  scholarship 
and  masculine  authority  in  school.  They  talk  of  the 
emasculation  of  the  staff  as  a  future  danger.  They 
do  not  seem  to  talk  of  their  natural  reluctance  to  cede 
important  posts  to  women,  but  this  must,  of  course, 
strengthen  their  pugnacity  and  in  some  cases  colour 
their  views. 

Meanwhile  many  parents  prefer  to  send  their  daughters 
to  one  of  the  private  schools  that  have  a  woman  at  the 
head,  and  where  most  of  the  teaching  is  done  by  women  ; 
or  to  a  S tiftt  a  residential  school  of  the  conventual  type, 
which  may  be  either  Protestant  or  Catholic.  A  girl  who 
had  spent  some  years  at  a  well-known  Protestant  Stiff 
described  her  school  life  to  me  as  minutely  as  possible, 
and  it  sounded  so  like  the  life  in  a  good  English 
boarding-school  thirty  years  ago  that  it  is  difficult  to 
pick  out  points  of  differences.  That  only  means,  of 
course,  that  the  differences  were  subtle  and  not  apparent 
in  rules  and  time-tables.  The  girls  wore  a  school 
uniform,  were  well  fed  and  taught,  strictly  looked  after, 
taken  out  for  walks  and  excursions,  allowed  a  private 
correspondence,  shown  how  to  mend  their  clothes,  made 
to  keep  their  rooms  tidy,  encouraged  in  piety  and 
decorum.  In  these  strenuous  times  it  sounds  a  little 
old-fashioned,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  a  school  of  this 
kind  fits  a  girl  for  a  sheltered  home  but  not  for  the 
open  road.  For  everyone  concerned  about  the  education 
of  women  the  interesting  spectacle  in  Germany  to-day 
is  the  campaign  being  carried  on  by  Helene  Lange 
and  her  party,  the  support  they  receive  from  the  official 
as  well  as  from  the  unofficial  world,  and  the  progress 
they  make  year  by  year  to  gain  their  ends. 


CHAPTER   IV 
THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  POOR 

THERE  are  no  people  in  the  world  who  need 
driving  to  school  less  than  the  Germans.  There 
are  no  people  in  the  world  who  set  so  high  a  value  on 
knowledge.  In  the  old  days,  when  they  lived  with  Jove 
in  the  clouds,  they  valued  knowledge  solely  for  its  own 
sake,  and  did  not  trouble  much  about  its  practical  use 
in  the  world.  It  is  absurd  to  say,  as  people  often  do 
now,  that  this  spirit  is  dead  in  the  nation.  You  cannot 
be  long  in  the  society  of  Germans  without  recognising 
that  it  survives  wherever  the  stress  of  modern  life  leaves 
room  for  it.  You  see  that  when  a  German  makes  money 
his  sons  constantly  enter  the  learned  and  the  artistic 
professions  with  his  full  approval,  though  they  are  most 
unlikely  to  make  a  big  income  in  this  way.  You  are 
told  by  people  who  work  amongst  the  poor,  that  parents 
will  make  any  sacrifices  year  after  year  in  order  to  send 
a  boy  to  one  of  the  higher  schools.  You  know  that 
the  Scotsmen  who  live  on  oatmeal  while  they  acquire 
learning  have  their  counterparts  in  the  German  univer- 
sities, where  many  a  student  would  not  dine  at  all  if 
private  or  organised  charity  did  not  give  him  a  dinner 
so  many  days  a  week.  Sometimes  you  have  heard  it 
said  of  such  and  such  a  great  German,  that  he  was  so 
poor  when  he  was  young  that  he  had  to  accept  these 
free  dinners  given  in  every  German  university  town  to 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  POOR          29 

penniless  students.  The  fact  would  be  remembered,  but 
it  would  never  count  against  a  man  in  Germany.  The 
dollar  is  not  almighty  there. 

To  say,  therefore,  that  education  is  compulsory 
throughout  the  empire  is  not  to  say  that  it  is  unpopular. 
A  teacher  in  an  elementary  school  was  once  telling  me 
how  particular  the  authorities  were  that  every  child, 
even  the  poorest,  should  come  to  school  properly  clothed 
and  shod.  "  For  instance,"  she  said,  "  if  a  child  comes 
to  school  in  house-shoes  he  is  sent  straight  home  again." 
"  But  do  the  parents  mind  that  ? "  I  asked  from  my 
English  point  of  view,  for  the  teacher  was  speaking  of 
people  who  in  England  would  live  in  slums  and  care 
little  whether  their  children  were  educated  or  not.  But 
in  Germany  even  the  poorest  of  the  poor  do  care,  and 
to  refuse  a  child  admission  to  school  is  an  effective 
punishment.  At  any  rate,  you  may  say  this  of  the 
majority.  No  doubt  if  school  was  not  compulsory  the 
dregs  of  the  nation  would  slip  out  of  the  net,  especially 
in  those  parts  of  the  empire  where  the  prevalent  char- 
acter is  shiftless  and  easy  going.  "  When  you  English 
think  that  we  hold  the  reins  too  tight,  it  is  because  you 
do  not  understand  what  a  mixed  team  we  have  to 
drive,"  a  north  German  said  to  me.  "  We  should  not 
get  on,  we  should  not  hold  together  long,  if  our  rule  was 
slack  and  our  attention  careless." 

At  the  last  census  only  one  in  10,000  could  not 
read  or  write,  and  these  dunces  were  all  Slavs.  But 
how  even  a  Slav  born  under  the  eye  of  the  Eagle  can 
remain  illiterate  is  a  mystery.  In  1905  there  were  59,348 
elementary  schools  in  the  empire,  and  their  organisation 
is  as  elaborate  and  well  planned  as  the  organisation  of 
the  army.  In  Berlin  alone  there  are  280.  All  the 
teachers  at  these  schools  have  been  trained  to  teach 
at  special  seminaries,  and  have  passed  State  examina- 


30  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

tions  that  qualify  them  for  their  work.  In  Germany 
many  men  and  women,  entitled  both  by  class  and 
training  to  teach  in  the  higher  grade  schools,  have  taken 
up  work  in  the  elementary  ones  from  choice.  I  know 
one  lady  whose  certificates  qualify  her  to  teach  in  a 
Hbhere  Tocliterschule,  and  who  elects  to  teach  a  large 
class  of  backward  children  in  a  Volkschule.  Her 
ambition  is  to  teach  those  children  described  in 
Germany  as  nicht  vb'llig  normal',  children  we  should 
describe  as  "  wanting."  She  says  that  her  backward 
children  repay  her  for  any  extra  trouble  they  give  by 
their  affection  and  gratitude.  She  knows  the  circum- 
stances of  every  child  in  her  class,  and  where  there  is 
real  need  she  can  get  help  from  official  sources  or  from 
philanthropic  organisations,  because  a  teacher's  recom- 
mendation carries  great  weight  in  Germany.  This 
lady  gets  up  every  day  in  summer  at  a  quarter  past 
five,  in  order  to  be  in  school  by  seven.  Her  school 
hours  are  from  seven  to  eleven  in  summer,  and  from 
eight  till  twelve  in  winter ;  but  she  has  a  great  deal  of 
work  to  prepare  and  correct  after  school.  Her  salary 
is  raised  with  every  year  of  service,  and  when  she  is 
past  work  she  will  be  entitled  to  a  State  pension  of 
thirty  pounds. 

Children  have  to  attend  school  from  the  age  of  six 
and  to  stay  till  they  are  fourteen  ;  and  in  their  school 
years  they  are  not  allowed  to  work  at  a  trade  without 
permission.  They  do  not  learn  foreign  languages,  but 
they  are  thoroughly  grounded  in  German,  and  they 
receive  religious  instruction.  Of  course,  they  learn 
history,  geography,  and  arithmetic.  In  the  new  schools 
every  child  is  obliged  to  have  a  warm  bath  every  week, 
but  it  is  not  part  of  a  teacher's  duties  to  superintend  it. 
Probably  the  women  who  clean  the  school  buildings  do 
so.  In  the  old  schools,  where  there  are  no  bathrooms, 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  POOR          31 

the  children  are  given  tickets  for  the  public  bathing 
establishments.  The  State  does  not  supply  free  food, 
but  there  are  philanthropic  societies  that  supply  those 
children  who  need  it  with  a  breakfast  of  bread  and 
milk  in  winter.  Everyone  connected  with  German 
schools  says  that  no  child  would  apply  for  this  if 
his  parents  were  not  destitute,  and  one  teacher  told  me 
a  story  of  the  headmaster's  boy  being  found,  to  his 
father's  horror  and  indignation,  seated  with  the  starving 
children  and  sharing  their  free  lunch.  He  had  brought 
his  own  lunch  with  him,  but  it  was  his  first  week  at 
school,  and  he  thought  that  a  dispensation  of  bread 
and  milk  in  the  middle  of  the  morning  was  part  of 
the  curriculum. 

School  books  are  supplied  to  children  too  poor  to 
buy  them,  and  it  seems  that  no  trouble  is  given  by 
applications  for  this  kind  of  relief  by  people  not  entitled 
to  it.  Gymnastics  are  compulsory  for  both  boys  and 
girls  in  the  lower  classes,  and  choral  singing  is  taught 
in  every  school.  Teachers  must  all  be  qualified  to 
accompany  singing  on  the  violin.  Most  of  the  ele- 
mentary schools  in  Prussia  are  free.  Some  few  charge 
sixpence  a  month.  A  child  can  even  have  free  teaching 
in  its  own  home  if  it  is  able  to  receive  instruction,  but 
not  to  attend  school.  Medical  inspection  is  rigorously 
carried  out  in  German  elementary  schools.  The  doctor 
not  only  watches  the  general  health  of  the  school,  but 
he  registers  the  height,  weight,  carriage,  state  of 
nourishment,  and  vaccination  marks  of  each  child  on 
admission ;  the  condition  of  the  eyes  and  ears  and 
any  marked  constitutional  tendency  he  can  discover. 
Every  child  is  examined  once  a  month,  when  necessary 
once  a  fortnight.  In  this  way  weak  or  wanting 
children  are  weeded  out,  and  removed  to  other 
surroundings,  the  short-sighted  and  the  deaf  are  given 


32  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

places  in  the  schoolroom  to  suit  them.  The  system 
protects  the  child  and  helps  the  teacher,  and  has  had 
the  best  results  since  it  was  introduced  into  Prussia 
in  1888. 

Attendance  at  continuation  schools  is  now  com- 
pulsory on  boys  and  girls  for  three  years  after  leaving 
the  elementary  school,  where  they  have  had  eight  years 
steady  education.  They  must  attend  from  four  to  six 
hours  weekly ;  instruction  is  free,  and  is  given  in  the 
evening,  when  the  working  day  is  over.  Certain 
classes  of  the  community  are  free,  but  about  30,000 
students  attend  these  schools  in  Berlin.  The  subjects 
taught  are  too  many  to  enumerate.  They  comprise 
modern  languages,  history,  law,  painting,  music,  mathe- 
matics, and  various  domestic  arts,  such  as  ironing  and 
cooking.  More  boys  than  girls  attend  these  schools, 
as  girls  are  more  easily  exempt.  It  is  presumably  not 
considered  so  necessary  for  them  as  for  their  brothers 
to  continue  their  education  after  the  age  of  fourteen. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  experiments  being  made 
in  Germany  at  present  is  the  "  open  air "  school, 
established  for  sickly  children  during  the  summer 
months.  The  first  one  was  set  up  by  the  city  of 
Charlottenberg  at  the  suggestion  of  their  Schulrat  and 
their  school  doctor,  and  it  is  now  being  imitated  in 
other  parts  of  Germany.  From  Charlottenberg  the 
electric  cars  take  you  right  into  the  pine  forest,  far 
beyond  the  last  houses  of  the  growing  city.  The  soil 
here  is  loose  and  sandy,  and  the  air  in  summer  so  soft 
that  it  wants  strength  and  freshness.  But  as  far  out  as 
this  it  is  pure,  and  the  medical  men  must  deem  it 
healing,  for  they  have  set  up  three  separate  ventures 
close  together  amongst  the  pine  trees.  One  belongs  to 
the  Society  of  the  Red  Cross,  and  here  sick  and  con- 
sumptive women  come  with  their  children  for  the  day, 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  POOR          33 

and  are  waited  on  by  the  Red  Cross  sisters.  We  saw 
some  of  them  lying  about  on  reclining  chairs,  and  some, 
less  sickly,  were  playing  croquet.  The  second 
establishment  is  for  children  who  are  not  able  to  do 
any  lessons,  children  who  have  been  weeded  out  by  the 
school  doctor  because  they  are  backward  and  sickly. 
There  are  a  hundred  and  forty  children  in  this  school, 
and  there  is  a  creche  with  twenty  beds  attached  to  it 
for  babies  and  very  young  children.  One  airy  room 
with  two  rows  of  neat  beds  was  for  rickety  children. 

The  third  and  largest  of  the  settlements  was  the 
Waldschule,  open  every  day,  Sundays  included,  from 
the  end  of  April  to  the  middle  of  October,  and  educating 
two  hundred  and  forty  delicate  children  chosen  from 
the  elementary  schools  of  Charlottenberg.  We  arrived 
there  just  as  the  children  were  going  to  sit  down  to 
their  afternoon  meal  of  bread  and  milk,  and  each  child 
was  fetching  its  own  mug  hanging  on  a  numbered 
hook.  The  meals  in  fine  weather  are  taken  at  long 
tables  in  the  open  air.  When  it  rains  they  are  served 
in  big  shelters  closed  on  three  sides.  Dotted  about  the 
forest  there  were  mushroom-shaped  shelters  with  seats 
and  tables  beneath  them,  sufficient  cover  in  slight 
showers ;  and  there  were  well  lighted,  well  aired  class- 
rooms, where  the  children  are  taught  for  twenty-five 
minutes  at  a  time. 

All  the  buildings  are  on  the  Doecker  system,  and 
were  manufactured  by  Messrs.  Christoph  &  Unmark 
of  Niesky.  This  firm  makes  a  speciality  of  schools 
and  hospitals,  built  in  what  we  should  call  the  bungalow 
style.  Of  course,  this  style  exactly  suits  the  needs  of 
the  school  in  the  forest.  There  is  not  a  staircase  in 
the  place,  there  is  no  danger  of  fire,  no  want  of 
ventilation,  and  very  little  work  for  housemaids  or 
charwomen.  The  school  furniture  is  simple  and  care- 
3 


34  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

fully  planned.     Some  of  it  was  designed  by  Richard 
Riemerschmid  of  Munich,  the  well-known  artist. 

Each  child  has  two  and  a  half  hours'  work  each  day  ; 
all  who  are  strong  enough  do  gymnastics,  and  all  have 
baths  at  school.  Each  child  has  its  own  locker  and  its 
own  numbered  blanket  for  use  out  of  doors  on  damp 
or  chilly  days.  The  doctor  visits  the  school  twice  a 
week,  and  the  weight  of  each  child  is  carefully  watched. 
The  busy  sister  who  superintends  the  housekeeping 
and  the  hygienic  arrangements  seemed  to  know  how 
much  each  child  had  increased  already ;  and  she  told 
us  what  quantities  of  food  were  consumed  every  day. 
The  kitchen  and  larder  were  as  bright  and  clean  as  such 
places  always  are  in  Germany.  When  the  children 
arrive  in  the  morning  at  half-past  seven  they  have 
a  first  breakfast  of  Griesbrei.  At  ten  o'clock  they 
have  rolls  and  butter.  Their  dinner  consists  of  one 
solid  dish.  The  day  we  were  there  it  had  been 
pork  and  cabbage,  a  combination  Germans  give  more 
willingly  to  delicate  children  than  we  should ;  the 
next  day  it  was  to  be  Nudelsuppe  and  beef.  At  four 
o'clock  they  have  bread  and  milk,  and  just  before 
they  go  home  a  supper  like  their  early  breakfast  of 
milk-soup,  and  bread.  260  litres  of  milk  are  used  every 
day,  50  to  60  Ibs.  of  meat,  2  cwts.  potatoes,  30  big  rye 
loaves,  280  rolls,  and  when  spinach,  for  instance,  is  given, 
80  Ibs.  of  spinach.  We  asked  whether  the  children  paid, 
and  were  told  that  those  who  could  afford  it  paid  from 
25  to  45  pf.  a  day.  The  school  is  kept  open  through- 
out the  summer  holidays,  but  no  work  is  done  then, 
and  two-thirds  of  the  teachers  are  away.  Although 
the  children  are  at  play  for  the  greater  part  of  the  day 
in  term  time,  and  all  day  in  the  holidays,  the  head- 
master told  us  that  they  gave  no  trouble.  There  was 
not  a  dirty  or  untidy  child  to  be  seen,  nor  one  with  rough 


THE  EDUCATION  OF  THE  POOR          35 

manners.  They  are  allowed  to  play  in  the  light,  sandy 
soil  of  the  forest,  much  as  English  children  play  at  the 
seaside,  and  we  saw  the  beginning  of  an  elaborate 
chain  of  fortresses  defended  by  toy  guns  and  decorated 
with  flowers.  We  heard  a  lesson  in  mental  arithmetic 
given  in  one  of  the  class-rooms,  the  boys  sitting  on 
one  side  of  the  room  and  the  girls  on  the  other ;  and 
we  found  that  these  young  sickly  children  were  admirably 
taught  and  well  advanced  for  their  age.  To  be  a  teacher 
in  one  of  these  open-air  schools  is  hard  work,  because 
the  strain  is  never  wholly  relaxed.  All  day  long,  and 
a  German  day  is  very  long,  the  children  must  be  watched 
•and  guarded,  sheltered  from  changes  in  the  weather 
and  prevented  from  over-tiring  themselves.  Many  of 
them  come  from  poor  cramped  homes,  and  to  spend 
the  whole  summer  in  the  forest  more  at  play  than 
at  work  makes  them  most  happy.  I  met  Germans 
who  did  not  approve  of  the  Waldschule^  who  considered 
it  a  fantastic  extravagant  experiment,  too  heavy  for 
the  rate-payers  to  bear.  This  is  a  side  of  the  question 
that  the  rate-payers  must  settle  for  themselves ;  but 
there  is  no  doubt  about  the  results  of  the  venture  on 
the  children  sent  to  school  in  the  forest.  They  get  a 
training  that  must  shape  their  whole  future,  moral  and 
physical,  a  training  that  changes  so  many  unsound 
citizens  into  sound  ones  every  year  for  the  German 
Empire.  If  the  rate-payers  can  survive  the  strain  it 
seems  worth  while. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  BACKFISCH 

THE  word  is  untranslatable,  though  my  dictionary 
translates  it.  Backfisch,  m.  fried  fish ;  young 
girl ;  says  the  dictionary.  In  Germany  a  woman  does 
not  arrive  at  her  own  gender  till  she  marries  and  becomes 
somebody's  Frau.  Woman  in  general,  girl,  and  miss 
are  neuter;  and  the  fried-fish  girl  is  masculine.  But 
if  one  little  versed  in  German  wished  to  tell  you  that 
he  liked  a  fried  sole,  and  said  Ich  Hebe  einen  Backfisch, 
it  might  lead  to  misunderstandings.  The  origin  of 
the  word  in  this  application  is  dubious.  Some  say  it 
means  fish  that  are  baked  in  the  oven  because  they 
are  too  small  to  fry  in  pans ;  but  this  does  not  seem 
a  sensible  explanation  to  anyone  who  has  seen  white- 
bait cooked.  Others  say  it  means  fish  the  anglers 
throw  back  into  the  water  because  they  are  small. 
At  any  rate,  the  word  used  is  to  convey  an  impression 
of  immaturity.  A  Backfisch  is  what  English  and 
American  fashion  papers  call  a  "  miss."  You  may  see, 
too,  in  German  shop  windows  a  printed  intimation 
that  special  attention  is  given  to  Backfisch  Moden.  It 
is  a  girl  who  has  left  school  but  has  not  cast  off  her 
school-girl  manners ;  and  who,  according  to  her  nation 
and  her  history,  will  require  more  or  less  last  touches. 

Miss  Betham-Edwards  tells  us  that  a   French  girl 
is  taught  from  babyhood  to  play  her  part  in  society, 


THE  BACKFISCH  37 

and  that  the  exquisite  grace  and  taste  of  Frenchwomen 
are  carefully  developed  in  them  from  the  cradle.  An 
English  girl  begins  her  social  education  in  the  nursery, 
and  is  trained  from  infancy  in  habits  of  personal  clean- 
liness and  in  what  old-fashioned  English  people  call 
"table  manners."  An  Englishwoman,  who  for  many 
years  lived  happily  as  governess  in  a  German  country 
house,  told  me  how  on  the  night  of  her  arrival  she  tried 
out  of  politeness  to  eat  and  drink  as  her  hosts  did ;  and 
how  the  mistress  of  the  house  confided  to  her  later  that 
she  had  disappointed  everyone  grievously.  There 
were  daughters  in  the  family,  and  they  were  to  learn 
to  behave  at  table  in  the  English  way.  That  was  why 
the  father,  arriving  from  Berlin,  had  on  his  own  initiative 
brought  them  an  English  governess ;  for  the  English 
are  admitted  by  their  continental  friends  to  excel  in 
this  special  branch  of  manners,  while  their  continental 
enemies  charge  them  with  being  "  ostentatiously  "  well 
groomed  and  dainty.  The  truth  is,  that  if  you  have 
lived  much  with  both  English  and  Germans,  and  desire 
to  be  fair  and  friendly  to  both  races,  you  find  that 
your  generalisations  will  not  often  weigh  on  one  side. 
The  English  child  learns  to  eat  with  a  fork  rather  than 
with  a  spoon,  and  never  by  any  chance  to  put  a  knife 
in  its  mouth,  or  to  touch  a  bone  with  its  fingers.  The 
German  child  learns  that  it  must  never  wear  a  soiled 
or  an  unmended  garment  or  have  untidy  hair.  I  have 
known  a  German  scandalised  by  the  slovenly  wardrobe 
of  her  well-to-do  English  pupil,  and  I  have  heard 
English  people  say  that  to  hear  Germans  eat  soup 
destroyed  their  appetite  for  dinner.  English  girls 
are  not  all  slovens,  and  nowadays  decently  bred 
Germans  behave  like  other  people  at  table.  But 
untidiness  is  commoner  in  England  than  in  Germany, 
and  you  may  still  stumble  across  a  German  any  day 


38  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

who,  abiding  by  old  customs,  puts  his  knife  in  his 
mouth  and  takes  his  bones  in  his  hands.  He  will 
not  only  do  these  things,  but  defend  them  vociferously. 
In  that  case  you  are  strongly  advised  not  to  eat  a  dish 
of  asparagus  in  his  company. 

Your  modern  German  Backfisch  may  be  a  person  of 
finish  and  wide  culture.  You  may  find  that  she  insists 
on  her  cold  tub  every  morning,  and  is  scandalised  by 
your  offer  of  hot  water  in  it.  She  has  seen  Salome  as 
a  play  and  heard  Salome  as  an  opera.  She  has  seen 
plays  by  G.B.S.  both  in  Berlin  and  L.ondon.  She  does 
not  care  to  see  Shakespeare  in  London,  because,  as  she 
tells  you,  the  English  know  nothing  about  him.  Besides, 
he  could  not  sound  as  well  in  English  as  in  German. 
She  has  read  Carlyle,  and  is  now  reading  Ruskin. 
She  adores  Byron,  but  does  not  know  Keats,  Shelley,  or 
Rossetti.  Tennyson  she  waves  contemptuously  away 
from  her,  not  because  she  has  read  him,  but  because  she 
has  been  taught  that  his  poetry  is  "  bourgeois."  Her 
favourite  novels  are  Dorian  Gray  and  Misunderstood. 
She  dresses  with  effect  and  in  the  height  of  fashion, 
she  speaks  French  and  English  fluently,  she  has  travelled 
in  Italy  and  Switzerland,  she  plays  tennis  well,  she  can 
ride  and  swim  and  skate,  and  she  would  cycle  if  it  was 
not  out  of  fashion.  In  fact,  she  can  do  anything,  and 
she  knows  everything,  and  she  has  been  everywhere 
Your  French  and  English  girls  are  ignorant  misses  in 
comparison  with  her,  and  you  say  to  yourself  as  you 
watch  her  and  humbly  listen  to  her  opinions,  de- 
livered without  hesitation  and  expressed  without 
mistakes :  "  Where  is  the  German  Backfisch  of  yester 
year  ?  " 

"  Did  you  ever  read  Backfischcheris  Leiden  und 
Freuden  ? "  you  say  to  her ;  for  the  book  is  in  its 
55th  edition,  and  you  have  seen  German  girls  de- 


THE  BACKFISCH  39 

vouring  it  only  last  week ;  German  girls  of  a  different 
type,  that  is,  from  your  present  glittering  companion. 

"That  old-fashioned  inferior  thing,"  she  says  con- 
temptuously. "  I  believe  my  mother  had  it.  That  is 
not  literature." 

You  leave  her  to  suppose  you  could  not  have  made 
that  discovery  for  yourself,  and  you  spend  an  amusing 
hour  over  the  story  again,  for  there  are  occasions  when 
a  book  that  is  not  "  literature  "  will  serve  your  purpose 
better  than  a  masterpiece.  The  little  book  has  enter- 
tained generations  of  German  girls,  and  is  presumably 
accepted  by  them,  just  as  Little  Women  is  accepted  in 
-America  or  The  Daisy  Chain  in  England.  The  picture 
was  always  a  little  exaggerated,  and  some  of  its  touches 
are  now  out  of  date ;  yet  as  a  picture  of  manners  it 
still  has  a  value.  It  narrates  the  joys  and  sorrows  of 
a  young  girl  of  good  family  who  leaves  her  country 
home  in  order  to  live  with  an  aunt  in  Berlin,  a  facetious 
but  highly  civilised  aunt  who  uses  a  large  quantity  of 
water  at  her  morning  toilet.  All  the  stages  of  this 
toilet  are  minutely  described,  and  all  the  mistakes  the 
poor  countrified  Backfisch  makes  the  first  morning. 
She  actually  gets  out  of  bed  before  she  puts  on  her 
clothes,  and  has  to  be  driven  behind  the  bed  curtains 
by  her  aunt's  irony.  This  is  an  incident  that  is  either 
out  of  date  or  due  to  the  genius  and  imagination  of  the 
author,  for  I  have  never  seen  bed  curtains  in  Germany. 
However,  Gretchen  is  taught  to  perform  the  early  stages 
of  her  toilet  behind  them,  and  then  to  wash  for  the 
first  time  in  her  life  in  a  basin  full  of  water.  She  is 
sixteen.  Her  aunt  presents  her  with  a  sponge,  and 
observes  that  the  civilisation  of  a  nation  is  judged  by 
the  amount  of  soap  it  uses.  "  In  much  embarrassment 
I  applied  myself  to  this  unaccustomed  task,"  continues 
the  ingenuous  Backfisch^  "  and  I  managed  it  so  cleverly 


40  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

that  everything  around  me  was  soon  swimming.  To 
make  matters  worse,  I  upset  the  water-jug,  and  now 
the  flood  spread  to  the  washstand,  the  floor,  the  bed 
curtains,  even  to  my  clothes  lying  on  the  chair.  "  If 
only  this  business  of  dressing  was  over,"  she  sighs  as 
she  is  about  to  brush  her  teeth,  with  brushes  supplied 
by  her  aunt.  But  it  is  by  no  means  over.  She  is 
just  going  to  slip  into  a  dressing-gown,  cover  her  un- 
brushed  hair  with  a  cap,  and  so  proceed  to  breakfast, 
when  this  exacting  aunt  stops  her :  actually  desires 
her  to  plait  and  comb  her  hair  at  this  hour  of  the 
morning,  and  to  put  on  a  tidy  gown.  Gretchen's 
gown  is  extremely  untidy,  and  on  that  account  I  will 
not  admit  that  the  portrait  is  wholly  lifelike.  In  fact, 
the  author  has  summed  up  the  sins  of  all  the  Backfisch 
tribe,  and  made  a  single  Backfisch  guilty  of  them.  But 
caricature,  if  you  know  how  to  allow  for  it,  is  instructive. 
Mr.  Stiggins  is  a  caricature,  yet  he  stands  for  failings 
that  exist  among  us,  though  they  are  never  displayed 
quite  so  crudely.  "  Go  and  brush  your  nails,"  says  the 
aunt  to  the  niece  when  the  girl  attempts  to  kiss  her 
hand ;  and  the  Backfisch  uses  a  nail-brush  for  the  first 
time  in  her  life. 

Then  the  two  ladies  sit  down  to  breakfast.  Gretchen 
fills  the  cups  too  full,  soaks  her  roll  in  her  coffee,  and 
drinks  out  of  her  saucer.  Her  aunt  informs  her  that 
"  coffee  pudding  "  is  not  polite,  and  can  only  be  allowed 
when  they  are  by  themselves ;  also  that  she  must  not 
drink  out  of  the  saucer.  "  But  we  children  always  did 
it  at  home,"  says  Gretchen.  "  I  can  well  believe  it," 
says  the  aunt.  "  Everything  is  permitted  to  children? 
The  italics  are  mine. 

An  aunt  who  has  such  ideas  about  the  education  of 
the  young  is  naturally  not  surprised  when  at  dinner- 
time she  has  to  admonish  her  niece  not  to  wipe  her 


f 


CONFIRMATION    IN   A  CATHOLIC   CHURCH 

AFTER    THE    1'AINTING    BY    HERMANN    BEHRENS 


THE  BACKFISCH  41 

mouth  with  her  hand,  not  to  speak  with  her  mouth  full, 
to  eat  her  soup  quietly,  to  keep  her  elbows  off  the  table, 
not  to  put  her  fingers  in  her  plate  or  her  knife  in  her 
mouth,  and  not  to  take  her  chicken  into  her  hands  on 
ceremonial  occasions. 

"  My  treasure,"  says  the  aunt,  "  as  you  know,  we  are 
going  to  dinner  with  the  Bunkers  to-morrow.  Be  good 
enough  not  to  take  your  chicken  into  your  hands.  Here 
at  home  I  don't  object  to  it,  but  the  really  correct  way 
is  to  separate  the  meat  from  the  bone  with  the  knife 
and  fork." 

The  docile  Backfisch  says  Jawohl,  liebe  Tante,  and 
feels  that  this  business  of  becoming  civilised  is  full  of 
pitfalls  and  surprises.  Never  in  her  life  has  she  eaten 
poultry  without  the  assistance  of  her  fingers.  When 
she  gets  to  the  dinner-party  she  is  fortunate  enough 
to  sit  next  to  her  bosom  frienc,  who  starts  in  horror 
and  whispers  "  With  a  knife,  Gretchen,"  when  Gretchen  is 
just  about  to  dip  her  fingers  in  the  salt.  The  Backfisch 
is  truly  anxious  to  learn,  but  she  feels  that  the  injunc- 
tions of  society  are  hard,  and  says  it  is  poor  sport  to 
eat  your  chicken  with  a  knife  and  fork,  because  the  best 
part  sticks  to  the  bones.  Then  her  friend  stops  her 
from  drinking  fruit  syrup  out  of  her  plate,  and  her 
neighbour  on  the  other  side,  a  stout  guzzler  who  has 
not  been  taught  by  his  aunt  to  eat  properly,  encourages 
Gretchen  to  drink  too  much  champagne. 

After  these  early  adventures  the  education  of  the 
Backfisch  proceeds  quickly.  She  has  to  learn  at  her 
aunt's  tea-parties  not  to  fill  cups  to  overflowing  in 
sheer  exuberance  of  hospitality ;  and  she  is  also  in- 
structed not  to  press  food  on  people.  "  In  good 
society,"  says  the  aunt,  "  people  decline  to  eat  because 
they  have  had  enough,  and  not  because  they  require 
pressing."  She  is  obliged  also  to  discourage  Gretchen 


42  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

from  waiting  too  attentively  on  the  young  men  who 
visit  at  the  house ;  and  Gretchen,  who  does  not  care 
about  young  men,  but  only  yearns  to  be  serviceable, 
devotes  herself  in  future  to  the  old  ladies,  their  foot- 
stools, their  knitting,  and  their  smelling  bottles.  This 
touch  is  one  of  many  that  makes  the  book,  in  spite  of 
its  obvious  shortcomings,  valuable  as  a  picture  of 
German  character  and  manner.  It  is  impossible  to 
imagine  Gretchen  in  a  French  or  English  story  of  the 
same  class.  The  French  girl  would  be  more  adroit 
and  witty;  the  English  girl  would  expect  young  men 
to  wait  on  her;  and  neither  of  them  would  gush  as 
Gretchen  did  about  her  old  ladies.  "  My  readiness 
to  serve  them  knew  no  bounds.  To  arrange  their 
seats  to  their  liking,  to  give  them  stools  for  their  feet 
and  cushions  for  their  backs,  to  rush  for  their  shawls 
and  cloaks,  to  count  the  rows  in  their  knitting,  to  help 
them  pick  up  their  stitches,  to  thread  their  needles,  to 
wind  silk  or  wool,  to  peel  fruit,  to  run  for  smelling 
bottles  and  cold  water, — all  these  things  I  did  with 
delight  the  instant  my  watchful  eye  discovered  the 
smallest  wish,  and  I  was  always  cordially  thanked." 

Tastes  differ.  Some  old  ladies  would  be  made  quite 
uncomfortable  by  such  fussy  attentions.  The  Backfisch 
goes  on  to  say  that  she  was  equally  assiduous  i« 
waiting  on  the  old  gentlemen,  She  picked  up  anything 
they  dropped,  polished  their  spectacles  for  them,  and 
listened  to  their  dull  stories  when  no  one  else  would. 
I  consider  the  portrait  of  Gretchen  in  this  story  a 
literary  triumph.  I  can  see  the  girl ;  I  can  hear  her 
voice  and  laugh.  I  know  exactly  how  she  behaved 
and  what  the  old  ladies  and  gentlemen  said  to  her,  how 
she  dressed  and  how  she  did  her  hair ;  not  because  the 
author  tells  me  just  these  things,  but  because  her  type 
is  as  true  to  life  to-day  as  it  was  thirty  years  ago.  As 


THE  BACKFISCH  43 

a  contrast  to  her,  a  fine  young  lady  from  the  city 
presently  joins  the  household,  and  the  aunt  does  not 
have  to  provide  her  with  a  tooth-brush.  The  new 
arrival  wears  blue  satin  slippers,  drinks  her  chocolate 
in  bed,  and  cannot  dress  without  the  help  of  a  maid. 
In  this  way  the  author  shows  you  that  girls  brought  up 
in  cities  are  superfine  rather  than  savage,  and  that  you 
are  not  to  suppose  the  ordinary  German  Backfisch  is 
like  her  little  heroine  from  the  provinces. 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is,  that  no  one  nowadays 
has  such  manners  as  the  Backfisch  had  when  she  first 
came  from  the  wilds ;  at  least,  no  one  of  her  class,  even 
irthey  have  grown  up  in  Hinter-Pommern.  But  if  you 
travel  in  Germany  next  week  and  stay  in  small  towns 
and  country  places,  you  will  still  meet  plenty  of  people 
who  take  their  poultry  bones  in  their  fingers  and  put 
their  knives  in  their  mouths.  If  they  are  men  you 
will  see  them  use  their  fork  as  a  dagger  to  hold  the 
meat  while  they  cut  it  up ;  you  will  see  them  stick  their 
napkins  into  their  shirt  collars  and  placidly  comb  their 
hair  with  a  pocket  comb  in  public ;  if  they  are  women 
and  at  a  restaurant,  they  will  pocket  the  lumps  of 
sugar  they  have  not  used  in  their  coffee.  But  if  you 
are  in  private  houses  amongst  people  of  Gretchen's  type 
you  will  see  none  of  these  things.  A  German  host 
still  pulls  the  joint  close  to  him  sometimes  or  stands  up 
to  carve,  and  a  German  hostess  still  presses  you  to  eat, 
still  in  the  kindness  of  her  heart  piles  up  your  plate. 
But  this  embarrassing  form  of  hospitality  is  dying  out. 
As  Gretchen's  aunt  said,  people  in  good  society  recognise 
that  a  guest  refuses  food  because  he  does  not  want  it. 
Some  years  ago,  when  you  had  satisfied  your  hunger 
and  declined  more,  your  German  friends  used  to  look 
offended  or  distressed,  and  say  Sie  geniren  sich  geiviss. 
This  is  a  difficult  phrase  to  translate,  because  the  idea  is 


44  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

one  that  has  never  taken  root  in  the  English  mind, 
Sick  genireny  however,  is  a  reflective  verb,  a  corruption 
of  the  French  verb  se  g^ner^  and  what  they  meant  was 
that  you  really  wanted  a  third  potato  dumpling  but  did 
not  like  to  say  so.  Whether  your  reluctance  was 
supposed  to  proceed  from  your  distrust  of  your  host's 
hospitality  or  shame  at  your  own  appetite,  is  not  clear ; 
in  either  case  it  was  taken,  is  even  to-day  still  often  taken, 
for  artificial.  To  accept  a  portion  of  an  untouched  dish 
was  considered  a  sign  that  you  came  from  "  a  good 
house "  where  no  one  grudged  or  wished  to  save  the 
food  put  on  the  table ;  and  formerly  you  could  not 
refuse  sugar  in  your  tea  without  being  commended  for 
your  economy.  You  are  still  invited  to  eat  tarts  and 
puddings  in  Germany  with  what  we  consider  the 
insufficient  assistance  of  a  tea-spoon,  but  I  have  never 
been  in  a  private  house  where  salt-spoons  were  not 
provided.  You  never  used  to  find  them  in  inns  of  a 
plain  kind,  and  unless  you  were  known  to  be  English 
and  peculiar  you  were  not  provided  with  more  than  one 
knife  and  fork  for  all  the  courses  of  a  table  (fhote 
You  would  see  your  German  neighbours  putting  theirs 
aside  as  a  matter  of  course  when  their  plates  were 
removed. 

On  the  whole,  then,  the  celebrated  picture  of  the 
Backfisch^  though  it  is  overloaded,  bears  some  relation  to 
the  facts  of  life  in  Germany :  not  only  in  the  episodes 
that  make  the  early  chapters  entertaining,  but  all 
through  the  story  in  atmosphere,  in  the  little  touches  that 
give  a  story  nationality.  When  the  excellent  Gretchen 
has  been  civilised  she  spends  a  great  deal  of  time  in  the 
kitchen,  and  soon  knows  all  the  duties  of  the  complete 
housekeeper  ;  while,  when  the  frivolous  Eugenie  becomes 
Braut  she  cannot  cook  at  all.  But  frivolous  as  she  is, 
she  recognises  that  marriage  is  unthinkable  without 


THE  BACKFISCH  45 

cooking,  and  straightway  sets  to  work  to  learn.  Then, 
too,  the  Backfisch  is  the  ideal  German  maiden,  cheerful, 
docile,  and  facetious ;  and  constantly  on  the  jump 
(spring-en  is  the  word  she  uses)  to  serve  her  elders. 
Middle-aged  Germans  used  to  have  a  most  tiresome 
way  of  expecting  girls  to  be  like  lambs  in  spring, 
always  in  the  mood  to  frisk  and  caper :  so  that  a  quiet 
or  a  delicate  girl  had  a  bad  time  with  some  of  them. 
Bin  junges  Mddchen  muss  immer  heiter  sein,  they  would 
say  reproachfully.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  you  are 
always  heiter  just  because  you  are  not  twenty  yet; 
especially  in  Germany,  where  girls  are  often  anaemic 
and  have  headaches.  However,  perhaps  the  modern 
German  maiden  does  not  allow  her  elders  to  be  so 
silly. 

There  are  some  other  ways,  too,  in  which  my  Backfisch 
of  thirty  years  ago  is  typical  of  German  womanhood 
both  then  and  now.  She  is  as  good  as  gold,  she  is 
devoted  to  duty  not  to  pleasure,  and  she  is  as  guileless 
as  a  child.  You  know  that  when  she  marries  she  will 
be  faithful  unto  death  ;  you  know  that  her  husband  and 
her  children  will  call  her  blessed.  These  things  come 
out  quite  naturally,  almost  unconsciously,  in  the  little 
story  that  is  "  not  literature,"  and  which  for  all  that  is 
so  truly  and  deeply  German  in  its  quality  and  tone. 
This  Gretchen  of  the  schoolroom,  this  caricature  of  the 
country  cousin,  is  akin  in  her  simplicity,  sweetness,  and 
depth  of  nature  to  that  other  Gretchen  whose  figure 
lives  for  ever  in  the  greatest  of  German  poems.  Just 
as  the  women  of  Shakespeare  and  the  women  of  Miss 
Austen  are  subtly  kin  to  each  other,  inasmuch  as  they 
are  English  women,  so  Goethe's  girl  and  the  girl  of  the 
poor  little  schoolroom  story  are  German  in  every  pulse 
and  fibre.  And  this  national  essence,  the  honesty, 
goodness,  and  sweetness  of  the  girl,  are  the  real  things, 


46  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

the  things  to  remember  about  her.  Those  little  matters 
of  the  toilet  and  the  table  will  soon  be  out  of  date,  are 
out  of  date  already  in  the  greater  part  of  Germany. 
As  a  picture  of  forgotten  manners  they  will  always  be 
amusing,  just  as  it  is  amusing  to  read  an  eighteenth- 
century  English  story  of  school  life,  in  which  the  young 
ladies  fought  and  bit  and  scratched  each  other  and 
were  whipped  and  sent  to  bed. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  STUDENT 

WHEN  an  English  lad  goes  to  the  university  he 
usually  goes  there  from  a  public  school,  where 
out  of  school  hours  he  has  been  learning  for  years  past 
to  be  a  man.  In  these  strenuous  days  he  may  have 
learned  a  little  in  school  hours  too,  but  that  is  a  new 
departure.  Cricket  and  character  are  what  an  English 
boy  expects  to  develop  at  school,  and  if  there  is  stuff 
in  him  he  succeeds.  He  does  not  set  a  high  value  on 
learning.  Even  if  he  works  and  brings  home  prizes  he 
will  not  be  as  proud  of  them  as  of  his  football  cap, 
while  a  boy  who  is  head  of  the  school,  but  a  duffer  at 
games,  will  live  for  all  time  in  the  memory  of  his 
fellows  as  a  failure.  But  the  German  boy  goes  to 
school  to  acquire  knowledge,  and  he  too  gets  what  he 
wants.  The  habit  of  work  must  be  strong  in  him 
when  at  the  age  of  eighteen  he  goes  to  one  of  his 
many  universities.  But  when  he  gets  there  he  is  free 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  and  the  first  use  he  for  the 
most  part  makes  of  his  freedom  is  to  be  thoroughly, 
happily  idle.  This  idleness,  if  he  has  a  backbone  and 
a  call  to  work,  only  lasts  a  term  or  two ;  and  no  one 
who  knows  how  a  German  boy  is  held  to  the  grind- 
stone for  twelve  years  of  school  life  can  grudge  him 
a  holiday.  But  the  odd  fact  is,  that  the  Briton  who 
leaves  school  a  man  is  more  under  control  at  Oxford 

47 


48  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

or    Cambridge  than  the  German   at    Heidelberg  who 
leaves  school  a  boy. 

A  German  university  is  a  teaching  institution  which 
prepares  for  the  State  examinations,  and  is  never 
residential.  There  are  no  old  colleges.  The  professors 
live  in  flats  like  other  people,  and  the  students  live  in 
lodgings  or  board  with  private  families.  There  is  one 
building  or  block  of  buildings  called  the  Universitdt 
where  there  are  laboratories  and  lecture-rooms.  The 
State  can  decline  a  professor  chosen  by  the  university ; 
but  this  power  is  rarely  exercised.  The  teachers  at 
a  German  university  consist  of  ordinary  professors, 
extraordinary  professors,  and  Privatdocenten — men  who 
are  not  professors  yet,  but  hope  to  be  some  day.  An 
Englishman  in  his  ignorance  might  think  that  an 
extraordinary  professor  ought  to  rank  higher  than  an 
ordinary  one ;  but  this  is  not  so.  The  ordinary  pro- 
fessors are  those  who  have  chairs ;  the  extraordinary 
ones  have  none.  But  all  professors  have  a  fixed 
salary  which  is  paid  to  the  day  of  their  death,  though 
they  may  cease  work  when  they  choose.  The  salaries 
vary  from  £240  to  £350,  and  are  paid  by  the  State, 
but  this  income  is  increased  by  lecturing  fees.  Whether 
it  is  largely  increased  depends  on  the  popularity  of  the 
lecturer  and  on  his  subject.  An  astronomer  cannot 
expect  large  classes,  while  a  celebrated  professor  of 
Law  or  Medicine  addresses  crowds.  I  have  found 
it  difficult  to  make  my  English  friends  believe  that 
there  are  professors  now  in  Berlin  earning  as  much 
as  £2500  a  year.  The  English  idea  of  the  Ger- 
man professor  is  rudely  disturbed  by  such  a  fact, 
for  his  poverty  and  simplicity  of  life  have  played  as 
large  a  part  in  our  tradition  of  him  as  his  learning. 
The  Germans  seem  to  recognise  that  a  scholar  cannot 
want  as  much  money  as  a  man  of  affairs ;  therefore, 


THE  STUDENT  49 

when  one  of  their  professors  is  so  highly  esteemed  by 
the  youth  of  the  nation  that  his  fees  exceed  £225,  half 
of  the  overflow  goes  to  the  university  and  not  to  him 
at  all.  In  this  way  Berlin  receives  a  considerable 
sum  every  year,  and  uses  it  to  assist  poorer  pro- 
fessors and  to  attract  new  men.  As  a  rule  a  German 
professor  has  not  passed  the  State  examinations.  These 
are  official,  not  academic,  and  they  qualify  men  for 
government  posts  rather  than  for  professorial  chairs. 
A  professor  acquires  the  academic  title  of  doctor  by 
writing  an  original  essay  that  convinces  the  university 
of  his  learning.  The  title  confers  no  privileges.  It  is 
an  academic  distinction,  and  its  value  depends  on  the 
prestige  of  the  university  conferring  it. 

Germans  say  that  our  English  universities  exist  to 
turn  out  gentlemen  rather  than  scholars,  and  that  the 
aim  of  their  own  universities  is  to  train  servants  for  the 
State  and  to  encourage  learning.  I  think  an  English- 
man would  say  that  a  gentleman  is  bred  at  home,  but 
he  would  understand  how  the  German  arrived  at  his 
point  of  view.  When  a  German  talks  of  an  English 
university  he  is  thinking  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge, 
and  he  knows  that,  roughly  speaking,  it  is  the  sons  of 
well-to-do  men  who  go  there.  Perhaps  he  does  not 
know  much  about  the  Scotch  and  Irish  and  Welsh 
universities,  or  London,  or  the  north  of  England ; 
though  it  is  never  safe  to  build  on  what  a  German 
does  not  know.  I  once  took  for  granted  that  a  man 
talking  to  me  of  some  point  in  history  would  no  more 
remember  all  the  names  and  dates  of  the  Kings  of 
Scotland  than  I  remember  them  myself.  But  he  knew 
every  one,  and  was  scandalised  by  my  ignorance.  So 
perhaps  the  average  German  knows  better  than  I  do 
what  it  costs  a  man  to  graduate  at  Edinburgh  or  at 
Dublin.  Anyhow,  he  knows  that  three  or  four  years 
4 


50  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

at  Oxford  or  Cambridge  cost  a  good  deal ;  and  he 
knows  that  in  Berlin,  for  instance,  a  student  can  live 
on  sixty  pounds  a  year,  out  of  which  he  can  afford 
about  five  pounds  a  term  for  academic  fees.  If  he  is 
too  poor  to  pay  his  fees  the  authorities  allow  him  to 
get  into  their  debt,  and  pay  later  in  life  when  he  has 
a  post.  There  are  cases  where  a  man  pays  for  his 
university  training  six  years  after  he  has  ended  it. 
But  a  German  university  comes  to  a  man's  help  still 
more  effectively  when  there  is  need  for  it,  and  will  grant 
him  partial  or  even  entire  support.  Then  there  are 
various  organisations  for  providing  hungry  men  with 
dinners  so  many  days  a  week ;  sometimes  at  a  public 
table,  sometimes  with  families  who  arrange  to  receive 
one  or  more  guests  on  certain  days  every  week.  The 
Jewish  community  in  a  university  always  looks  after  its 
poor  students  well,  and  this  practice  of  entertaining 
them  in  private  houses  is  one  that  gives  rises  to  many 
jests  and  stories.  The  students  soon  find  out  which  of 
their  hosts  are  liberal  and  which  are  not,  and  give 
them  a  reputation  accordingly. 

A  German  comparing  his  universities  with  the 
English  ones  will  always  lay  stress  on  the  fact  that  his 
are  not  examining  bodies,  and  that  his  professors  are 
not  crammers  but  teachers.  A  student  who  intends  to 
pass  the  State  examinations  chooses  his  own  course  of 
reading  for  them,  and  the  lectures  that  he  thinks  will 
help  him.  He  does  not  necessarily  spend  his  whole 
time  at  the  same  university,  but  may  move  from  one  to 
the  other  in  pursuit  of  the  professors  he  wants  for  his 
special  purpose.  He  is  quite  free  to  do  this ;  and  he 
is  free  to  work  night  and  day,  or  to  drink  beer  night 
and  day.  He  is  under  no  supervision  either  in  his 
studies  or  his  way  of  life. 

English  people  who  have  been  to  Germany  at  all 


BURSCHENHERRLICHKEIT 

FROM    THE    PAINTING    BY    CH.    HEYUEN 


THE  STUDENT  51 

have  invariably  been  to  Heidelberg,  and  if  they  have 
been  there  in  term  time  they  have  been  amused  by  the 
gangs  of  young  men  who  swagger  about  the  narrow 
streets,  each  gang  wearing  a  different  coloured  cap. 
They  will  have  been  told  that  these  are  the  "  corps  " 
students,  and  the  sight  of  them  so  jolly  and  so  idle 
will  confirm  their  mental  picture  of  the  German 
student,  the  picture  of  a  young  man  who  does  nothing  but 
drink  beer,  fight  duels,  sing  Volkslieder  and  Trinklieder, 
and  make  love  to  pretty  low-born  maidens.  When 
you  see  a  company  of  these  young  men  clatter  into 
the  Schloss  garden  on  a  summer  afternoon,  and  drink 
vast  quantities  of  beer,  when  you  observe  their 
elaborate  ceremonial  of  bows  and  greetings,  when  you 
hear  their  laughter  and  listen  to  the  latest  stories  of 
their  monkey  tricks,  you  understand  that  the  student's 
life  is  a  merry  one,  but  except  for  the  sake  of  tradition 
you  wonder  why  he  need  lead  it  at  a  seat  of  learning. 
Anything  further  removed  from  learning  than  a 
German  corps  student  cannot  be  imagined,  and  the 
noise  he  makes  must  incommode  the  quiet  working 
students  who  do  not  join  a  corps.  Not  that  the 
quiet  working  students  would  wish  to  banish  the  others. 
They  are  the  glory  of  the  German  universities.  In 
novels  and  on  the  stage  none  others  appear.  The 
innocent  foreigner  thinks  that  the  moment  a  young 
German  goes  to  the  Alma  Mater  of  his  choice  he 
puts  on  an  absurd  little  cap,  gets  his  face  slashed, 
buys  a  boarhound,  and  devotes  all  his  energies  to 
drinking  beer  and  ragging  officials.  But  though  the 
"  corps "  students  are  so  conspicuous  in  the  small 
university  towns,  it  is  only  the  men  of  means  who 
join  them.  For  poorer  students  there  is  a  cheaper 
form  of  union,  called  a  Burschenschaft.  When  a 
young  German  goes  to  the  university  he  has  probably 


52  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

never  been  from  home  before,  and  by  joining  a  Corps 
or  a  Burschenschaft  he  finds  something  to  take  the 
place  of  home,  companions  with  whom  he  has  a 
special  bond  of  intimacy,  and  a  discipline  that  carries 
on  his  social  education ;  for  the  etiquette  of  these 
associations  is  most  elaborate  and  strict.  The 
members  of  a  corps  all  say  "  thou  "  to  each  other,  and 
on  the  Alte  Herren  Abende,  when  members  of  an  older 
generation  are  entertained  by  the  young  ones  of  to-day, 
this  practice  still  obtains,  although  one  man  may  be  a 
great  minister  of  State  and  the  other  a  lad  fresh  from 
school.  The  laws  of  a  "corps"  remind  you  of  the 
laws  made  by  English  schoolboys  for  themselves, — 
they  are  as  solemnly  binding,  as  educational,  and  as 
absurd.  If  a  Vandal  meets  a  Hessian  in  the  street  he 
may  not  recognise  him,  though  the  Hessian  be  his 
brother ;  but  outside  the  town's  boundary  this  prohibi- 
tion is  relaxed,  for  it  is  not  rooted  in  ill  feeling  but  in 
ceremony.  One  corps  will  challenge  another  to  meet 
it  on  the  duelling  ground,  just  as  an  English  football 
team  will  meet  another — in  friendly  rivalry.  All 
the  students'  associations  except  the  theological  require 
their  members  to  fight  these  duels,  which  are  really 
exercises  in  fencing,  and  take  place  on  regular  days  of 
the  week,  just  as  cricket  matches  do  in  England. 
The  men  are  protected  by  goggles  and  by  shields  and 
baskets  on  various  parts  of  their  bodies,  but  their 
faces  are  exposed,  and  they  get  ugly  cuts,  of  which 
they  are  extremely  proud.  As  it  is  quite  impossible 
that  I  should  have  seen  these  duels  myself,  I  will 
quote  from  a  description  sent  me  by  an  English  friend 
who  was  taken  to  them  in  Heidelberg  by  a  corps 
student.  "  They  take  place,"  he  says,  "  in  a  large 
bare  room  with  a  plain  boarded  floor.  There  were 
tables,  each  to  hold  ten  or  twelve  persons,  on  three 


THE  STUDENT  53 

sides  of  the  room,  and  a  refreshment  counter  on  the 
fourth  side,  where  an  elderly  woman  and  one  or  two 
girls  were  serving  wine.  The  wine  was  brought  to  the 
tables,  and  the  various  corps  sat  at  their  special  tables, 
all  drinking  and  smoking.  The  dressing  and  undressing 
and  the  sewing  up  of  wounds  was  done  in  an  adjoining 
room.  When  the  combatants  were  ready  they  were 
led  in  by  their  seconds,  who  held  up  their  arms  one 
on  each  side.  The  face  and  the  top  of  the  head  were 
exposed,  but  the  body,  arms  and  neck  were  heavily 
bandaged.  The  duellists  are  placed  opposite  each 
other,  and  the  seconds,  who  also  have  swords  in  their 
hands,  stand  one  on  each  side,  ready  to  interfere  and 
knock  up  the  combatant's  sword.  They  say  l  Auf  die 
Mensurl  and  then  the  slashing  begins.  As  soon  as 
blood  is  drawn  the  seconds  interfere,  and  the  doctor 
examines  the  cut.  If  it  is  not  bad  they  go  on  fighting 
directly.  If  it  needs  sewing  up  they  go  into  the  next 
room,  and  you  wait  an  endless  time  for  the  next 
party.  I  got  awfully  tired  of  the  long  intervals, 
sitting  at  the  tables,  drinking  and  smoking.  While 
the  fights  were  going  on  we  all  stood  round  in  a  ring. 
There  were  only  about  three  duels  the  whole  morning. 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  blood  on  the  floor.  The 
women  at  the  refreshment  counter  were  quite  uncon- 
cerned. They  didn't  trouble  to  look  on,  but  talked 
to  each  other  about  blouses  like  girls  in  a  post  office. 
The  students  drove  out  to  the  inn  and  back  in  open 
carriages.  It  is  a  mile  from  Heidelberg.  The  duels 
are  generally  as  impersonal  as  games,  but  sometimes 
they  are  in  settlement  of  quarrels.  I  think  any 
student  may  come  and  fight  on  these  occasions,  but  I 
suppose  he  has  to  be  the  guest  of  a  corps." 

A   German    professor    lecturing    on    university    life 
constantly  used  a  word   I  did  not  understand  at  first. 


54  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

The  word  as  he  said  it  was  Commang,  with  a  strong 
accent  on  the  second  syllable.  The  word  as  it  is 
written  is  Comment,  and  means  the  etiquette  set  up  and 
obeyed  by  the  students.  The  Germans  have  taken 
many  French  words  into  their  language  and  corrupted 
them,  much  as  we  have  ourselves :  sometimes  by 
Germanising  the  pronunciation,  sometimes  by  con- 
jugating a  French  verb  in  the  German  way  as  they 
do  in  raisonniren  and  geniren.  The  Commang,  said 
the  professor,  was  a  highly  valuable  factor  in  a  young 
man's  education,  because  it  helped  more  than  anything 
else  to  turn  a  schoolboy  into  a  man  of  the  world.  So 
when  I  saw  a  little  book  called  Der  Bier  Comment 
for  sale  I  bought  it  instantly,  for  I  wanted  to  know  how 
beer  turned  a  schoolboy  into  a  man  of  the  world.  It 
began  with  a  little  preface,  a  word  of  warning  to 
anyone  attempting  to  write  about  the  morals,  customs, 
and  characteristics  of  the  German  nation.  No  one 
undertaking  this  was  to  forget  that  the  Germans  had 
an  amazing  Bierdurst,  and  that  they  liked  to  assuage 
this  thirst  in  company,  to  be  cheerful  and  easy,  and  to 
sing  while  they  were  drinking.  Then  it  goes  on  to  give 
the  elaborate  ceremonial  observed  at  the  Kneiptafel. 
One  of  my  dictionaries,  although  the  German-English 
part  has  24 1 2  pages,  translates  Kneipe  as  "  any  instru- 
ment for  pinching."  I  never  yet  found  anything  I 
wanted  in  those  2412  pages.  Another  dictionary,  one 
that  cost  ninepence,  and  is  supposed  to  give  you  all 
words  in  common  use,  does  not  include  Kneipe  at  all. 
As  an  instrument  for  pinching,  Kneipe  is  certainly  not 
common,  except  possibly  amongst  people  who  use  tools. 
As  a  word  for  a  sort  of  beer  club  it  is  as  common  as 
beer.  It  is  not  only  students  who  go  to  the  Kneipe. 
In  some  parts  of  Germany  men  spend  most  of  the 
evening  drinking  beer  and  smoking  with  their  friends, 


THE  STUDENT  55 

while  the  womenfolk  are  by  themselves  or  with  the 
children  at  home.  But  the  beer  Commang  that  the 
professor  thought  had  such  educational  value  is  the 
name  for  certain  intricate  rites  practised  by  university 
students  at  the  Kneiptafel.  Those  who  sit  at  the  table 
are  called  Beer  Persons,  and  they  are  of  various  ranks 
according  to  the  time  of  membership  and  their  position 
in  the  Kneipe.  Every  Beer  Person  must  drink  beer 
and  join  in  the  songs,  unless  he  has  special  permission 
from  the  chairman.  The  Beer  Persons  do  not  just  sit 
round  the  table  and  drink  as  they  please.  If  they  did 
there  would  be  no  Comment,  and  I  suppose  no  educa- 
tional value.  They  have  to  invite  their  fellows  to  drink 
with  them,  and  the  quantity  drunk,  the  persons  who 
may  have  challenged,  and  the  exact  number  of  minutes 
that  may  elapse  before  a  challenge  is  accepted  and 
returned,  is  all  exactly  laid  down.  Then  there  are 
various  festive  and  ingenious  ways  of  drinking  together, 
so  as  to  turn  the  orgy  into  something  like  a  game. 
For  instance,  the  glass  "  goes  into  the  world,"  that  is,  it 
circulates,  and  any  Beer  Person  who  seizes  it  with  a 
different  hand  or  different  fingers  from  his  neighbour 
is  fined.  Or  the  glasses  are  piled  one  on  the  top  of 
another  while  the  Beer  Persons  sing,  and  some  one  man 
has  to  drink  to  each  glass  in  the  pile  at  the  word  of 
command.  Or  the  president  orders  a  "  Beer  Galop " 
with  the  words  "  Silentium  fur  einen  Biergalopp :  ich 
bitte  den  notigen  Stoff  anzuschaffen"  At  the  word  of 
command  everyone,  beginning  with  the  president, 
passes  his  glass  to  his  left-hand  neighbour  and 
empties  the  one  he  receives.  Then  the  glasses  are 
refilled,  passed  to  the  right,  and  emptied  again  as  soon 
as  possible.  The  president,  it  seems,  has  to  exercise  a 
good  deal  of  discretion  and  ingenuity,  for  if  the  Kneipe 
seems  flat  it  lies  with  him  to  order  the  moves  in  the 


56  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

game  that  will  make  it  lively  and  stimulate  beer,  song, 
and  conversation.  There  are  various  fines  and 
punishments  inflicted  according  to  strict  rule  on  those 
who  transgress  the  code  of  the  Kneipe,  but  as  far  as  I 
can  make  out  they  all  resolve  themselves  into  drinking 
extra  beer,  singing  extra  songs,  or  in  really  serious 
cases  ceasing  to  be  a  Beer  Person  for  whatever  length 
of  time  meets  the  offence.  An  Englishman  who  was 
present  at  some  of  these  gatherings  in  Heidelberg,  told 
me  that  the  etiquette  was  most  difficult  for  a  foreigner 
to  understand,  and  always  a  source  of  anxiety  to  him 
all  the  evening.  He  was  constantly  invited  to  drink 
with  various  members,  and  the  German  responsible  for 
him  explained  that  he  must  not  only  respond  to  the 
invitation  at  the  moment,  but  return  it  at  the  right 
time:  not  too  soon,  because  that  would  look  like 
shaking  off  an  obligation,  and  not  too  late,  because  that 
would  look  like  forgetting  it. 

A  Kommers  is  a  students'  festival  in  which  the 
professors  and  other  senior  members  of  a  university 
take  part,  and  at  which  outsiders  are  allowed  to  look 
on.  The  presiding  students  appear  in  vollem  Wichs, 
as  we  should  say  in  their  war  paint,  with  sashes  and 
rapiers.  Young  and  old  together  drink  beer,  sing 
songs,  make  speeches,  and  in  honour  of  one  or  the 
other  they  "  rub  a  Salamander," — a  word  which  is 
said  to  be  a  corruption  of  Sauft  alle  mit  einander. 
This  is  a  curious  ceremony  and  of  great  antiquity. 
When  the  glasses  are  filled,  at  the  word  of  command 
they  are  rubbed  on  the  table ;  at  the  word  of  command 
they  are  raised  and  emptied ;  and  again  at  the  word 
of  command  every  man  rubs  his  glass  on  the  table, 
the  second  time  raises  it  and  brings  it  down  with 
a  crash.  Anyone  who  brought  his  glass  down  a 
moment  earlier  or  later  than  the  others  would  spoil 


THE  STUDENT  57 

the  Salamander  and  be  in  disgrace.  In  Ekkehardt 
Scheffel  describes  a  similar  ceremonial  in  the  tenth 
century.  "The  men  seized  their  mugs,"  he  says, 
"  and  rubbed  them  three  times  in  unison  on  the 
smooth  rocks,  producing  a  humming  noise,  then  they 
lifted  them  towards  the  sun  and  drank ;  each  man 
set  down  his  mug  at  the  same  moment,  so  that  it 
sounded  like  a  single  stroke." 

A  Kommers  is  not  always  a  gay  festival.  It  may 
be  a  memorial  ceremony  in  honour  of  some  great 
man  lately  dead.  Then  speeches  are  made  in  his 
praise,  solemn  and  sacred  music  is  sung,  and  the 
Salamander,  an  impressive  libation  to  the  dead  man's 
Manes,  is  drunk  with  mournful  effect. 

In  small  university  towns — and  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  there  are  twenty-two  universities  in 
Germany — the  students  play  a  great  part  in  the  social 
life  of  the  place.  German  ladies  have  often  told  me 
that  the  balls  they  looked  forward  to  with  most 
delight  as  girls  were  those  given  by  students,  when 
one  "  corps "  would  take  rooms  and  pay  for  music, 
wine,  and  lights.  For  supper,  tickets  are  issued  on 
such  occasions,  which  the  guests  pay  themselves. 
The  small  German  universities  seem  full  of  the 
students  in  term  time,  especially  in  those  places 
where  people  congregate  for  pleasure  and  not  for 
work.  Even  in  a  town  as  big  as  Leipsic  they  are 
seen  a  good  deal,  filling  the  pavement,  occupying 
the  restaurants,  going  in  gangs  to  the  play.  But 
in  Berlin  the  German  student  of  tradition,  the  beer 
person,  the  duellist,  the  rollicking  lad  with  his  big  dog, 
is  lost.  He  is  there,  you  are  told,  but  if  you  keep  to 
the  highway  you  never  see  him ;  and,  to  tell  the  truth, 
in  Germany  you  miss  him.  He  stands  for  youth  and 
high  spirits  and  that  world  of  ancient  custom  most 


58  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

of  us  would  be  loth  to  lose.  In  Berlin,  if  you  go  to 
the  Universitat  when  the  working  day  begins,  you 
see  a  crowd  of  serious,  well-mannered  young  men, 
most  of  them  carrying  books  and  papers.  They 
are  swarming  like  bees  to  the  various  lecture-rooms ; 
they  are  as  quiet  as  the  elderly  professors  who  appear 
amongst  them.  They  have  no  corps  caps,  no  dogs, 
no  scars  on  their  scholarly  faces.  By  their  figures 
you  judge  that  they  are  not  Beer  Persons.  They 
have  worked  hard  for  twelve  years  in  the  gymnasiums 
of  Germany,  they  have  no  idle  habits,  no  interests  so 
keen  as  their  interest  in  this  business  of  preparing  for 
the  future.  They  are  the  men  of  next  year's  Germany, 
and  will  carry  on  their  country's  reputation  in  the 
world  for  efficiency  and  scholarship. 


CHAPTER   VII 
RIEHL  ON  WOMEN 

NOT  long  ago  I  heard  a  German  professor  say  that 
anyone  who  wanted  to  speak  with  authority 
about  the  German  family  must  read  Die  Familie  by 
W.  H.  Riehl.  He  said  that,  amongst  other  things, 
this  important  work  explained  why  men  went  to  the 
Kneipe,  because  they  were  fond  of  home  life ;  and  also 
what  was  the  sphere  of  women.  I  thought  it  would 
be  useful  to  have  both  these  points  settled ;  besides, 
I  asked  several  wise  Germans  about  the  book,  and 
they  all  nodded  their  heads  and  said  it  was  a  good 
one.  So  I  got  it,  and  was  surprised  to  find  it  came 
out  in  1854.  I  thought  ideas  about  women  had 
advanced  since  then,  even  in  Germany,  though  a 
German  friend  had  warned  me  just  before  my  last 
visit  not  to  expect  much  in  this  way.  She  made 
a  movement  with  her  lips  as  if  she  was  blowing  a 
bit  of  thistledown  from  her.  "  Remember,"  she  said, 
"  that  is  what  you  will  be  directly  you  get  there  .  .  . 
nothing  at  all."  But  I  had  been  to  Germany  so  often 
that  I  was  prepared  to  be  "  nothing  at  all "  for  a  time, 
and  not  to  mind  it  much.  What  I  wanted  to  discover 
was  how  far  German  women  had  arrived  at  being 
"  something "  in  the  eyes  of  their  men.  In  my  eyes 
they  had  always  been  a  good  deal :  admirable  wives 
and  mothers,  for  instance,  patient,  capable,  thrifty,  and 

59 


60  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

self-sacrificing.  At  first  I  thought  that  my  friend  was 
wrong,  and  that  women  of  late  years  had  made  great 
strides  in  Germany.  I  met  single  women  who  had 
careers  and  homes  of  their  own  and  were  quite 
cheerful.  When  you  are  old  enough  to  look  back 
twenty  or  thirty  years,  and  remember  the  blight 
there  used  to  be  on  the  "  old  maid,"  and  the  narrow 
gossiping  life  she  was  driven  to  lead,  you  must  admit 
that  these  contented  bachelor  women  have  done  a 
good  deal  to  emancipate  themselves.  In  England 
they  have  been  with  us  for  a  long  time,  but  formerly 
I  had  not  come  across  them  in  Germany.  On  the 
contrary,  I  well  remember  my  amazement  as  a  girl 
at  hearing  a  sane  able-bodied  single  woman  of  sixty 
say  she  had  naturally  not  ventured  on  a  summer 
journey  to  Switzerland  till  some  man  who  looked 
after  her  money  affairs,  but  was  in  no  way  related^ 
had  given  her  his  consent.  I  did  once  hear  a  German 
boast  of  having  struck  his  wife  in  order  to  bring  her 
to  submission.  He  was  not  a  navvy  either,  but  a 
merchant  of  good  standing.  He  was  not  a  common 
type,  however.  German  men,  on  the  whole,  treat  their 
womenfolk  kindly,  but  never  as  their  equals.  Over 
and  over  again  German  women  have  told  me  they 
envied  the  wives  of  Englishmen,  and  I  should  say 
that  it  is  impossible  for  an  English  woman  to  be  in 
Germany  without  feeling,  if  she  understands  what  is 
going  on  around  her,  that  she  has  suddenly  lost  caste. 
She  is  "  nothing  at  all "  because  she  is  a  woman  :  to 
be  treated  with  gallantry  if  she  is  young  and  pretty, 
and  as  a  negligible  quantity  if  she  is  not.  That  perhaps 
is  a  bitter  description  of  what  really  takes  place,  but 
after  reading  Herr  Riehl,  and  hearing  that  his  ideas 
are  still  widely  accepted  in  Germany,  I  am  not  much 
afraid  of  being  unjust.  His  own  arguments  convict 


RIEHL  ON  WOMEN  61 

the  men  of  the  nation  in  a  measure  nothing  I  could 
say  would.  They  are  in  extreme  opposition  to  the 
ideas  fermenting  amongst  modern  women  there,  and 
the  strange  fact  that  they  are  not  regarded  as  quite 
out  of  date  makes  them  interesting. 

Herr  Riehl's  theory,  to  put  it  in  a  nutshell,  is  that 
the  family  is  all-important,  and  the  individual,  if  she 
is  a  woman,  is  of  no  importance  at  all.  He  does  not 
object  to  her  being  yoked  to  a  plough,  because  then 
she  is  working  for  the  family,  but  he  would  forbid  her, 
if  he  could,  to  enter  any  profession  that  would  make 
her  independent  of  the  family.  She  is  not  to  practise 
ariy  art,  and  if  she  "  commences  author  "  it  is  a  sure 
sign  that  she  is  ugly,  soured,  and  bitter.  In  any 
country  where  they  are  allowed  to  rule,  and  even 
in  any  country  where  they  distinguish  themselves  in 
art  and  literature,  civilisation  as  well  as  statecraft 
must  be  at  a  standstill.  Queen  Elizabeth  and  Maria 
Theresa  were  evidently  awkward  people  for  a  man 
laying  down  this  theory  to  encounter,  so  he  goes  out 
of  his  way  to  say  that  they  were  not  women  at  all,  but 
men  in  women's  clothes.  Moreover,  he  has  no  doubt 
that  the  Salic  law  must  ultimately  prevail  everywhere. 

A  woman  has  no  independent  existence  :  he  says 
she  is  taught  from  childhood  to  be  subordinate  to 
others  ;  she  cannot  go  out  by  herself  with  propriety  ; 
she  is  not  a  complete  creature  till  she  finds  a  mate. 
The  unlucky  women  who  never  find  one  (more  than 
400,000  in  Germany)  are  not  to  make  any  kind 
of  career  for  themselves,  either  humble  or  glorious. 
Each  one  is  to  search  carefully  for  relatives  who 
will  give  her  a  corner  in  their  house,  and  allow  her 
to  work  for  them.  If  no  one  wants  her  she  may 
live  with  other  women  and  bring  up  poor  children. 
He  would  allow  women  some  education.  Far  be  it 


te  .' 


62  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

from  him  to  think  that  women  are  to  remain  in  com- 
pulsory ignorance.  But  their  education  is  to  be 
"  womanly,"  and  carried  on  in  the  family.  Women 
teachers  in  public  schools  he  considered  a  danger  to 
the  State,  and  he  would  send  all  girls  till  they  reach 
their  twelfth  or  fourteenth  year  to  the  elementary 
schools,  where  they  would  be  taught  by  men  and 
associate  with  bare-footed  children.  Woman,  in  short, 
is  to  learn  how  to  be  woman  at  home,  and  how  not  to 
be  superwoman  in  school.  She  may  even  have  some 
instruction  in  art  and  science,  but  only  a  limited 
instruction  that  will  not  encroach  on  her  duty  to  the 
family. 

The  fate  of  lonely  single  women  is  much  on  Herr 
Riehl's  mind.  What  are  we  to  do  with  them  ?  he  asks 
despairingly.  "  What  is  to  become  of  the  army  of 
innocent  creatures,  without  means,  without  a  craft, 
doomed  to  an  aimless,  disappointed  life.  Shall  we 
shut  them  up  in  convents  ?  Shall  we  buy  them  into 
Stifts  ?  Shall  we  send  them  to  Australia  ?  Shall  we  put 
an  end  to  them  ?  "  Quite  in  the  manner  of  Dogberry, 
he  answers  his  own  questions.  Let  them  go  their 
ways  as  before,  he  says.  He  knows  there  is  no  short 
cut  to  social  regeneration,  and  he  will  not  recommend 
one,  not  even  extirpation.  He  points  out  that  the 
working  women  of  Germany  have  never  asked  to  be  on 
an  equality  with  men.  The  lower  you  descend  in  the 
social  scale  the  less  sharply  women  are  differentiated 
from  men,  and  the  worse  time  women  have  in  con- 
sequence. The  wife  of  a  peasant  is  only  his  equal  in 
one  respect :  she  works  as  hard  as  he  does.  Other- 
wise she  is  his  serf.  The  sole  public  position  allowed 
to  a  woman  in  a  village  is  that  of  gooseherd ;  while 
those  original  minds  who  in  other  circumstances  would 
take  to  authorship  or  painting  have  to  wait,  if  they  are 


RIEHL  ON  WOMEN  63 

peasants,  till  they  are  old,  when  they  can  take  to  fortune- 
telling  and  witchcraft.  Herr  Riehl  admits  that  the  lot 
of  women  when  they  are  peasants  is  not  a  happy  one. 
He  does  not  make  the  admission  because  he  thinks  it 
of  much  consequence,  but  because  it  illustrates  his 
argument  that  the  less  "  feminine  "  women  are  the  less 
power  they  exercise.  He  has  no  great  fault  to  find 
with  the  peasant's  household,  where  the  wife  is  a  beast 
of  burden  in  the  field  and  a  slave  indoors,  bears 
children  in  quick  succession,  is  old  before  her  time,  and 
sacrifices  herself  body  and  soul  to  the  family.  But 
he  points  out  that  on  a  higher  social  plane,  where 
women  are  more  unlike  men,  more  distinctively 
feminine,  the  position  they  take  is  more  honourable. 
Yet  it  is  these  same  "  superfeminine "  women  who  are 
foolishly  claiming  equality  with  men. 

Herr  Riehl's  views  expressed  in  English  seem  a  little 
behind  the  times,  here  and  there  more  than  a  little 
brutal.  He  speaks  with  sympathy  of  suttee,  and  he 
quotes  the  Volga-Kalmucks  with  approval.  This  tribe, 
it  seems,  "  treat  their  wives  with  the  most  exquisite 
patriarchal  courtesy;  but  directly  the  wife  neglects  a 
household  duty  courtesy  ceases  (for  the  genius  of  the 
house  is  more  important  than  the  personal  dignity  of 
the  wife),  and  the  sinner  is  castigated  (wird  tUchtig 
durchgepeitscht).  The  whip  used,  the  household 
sword  and  sceptre,  is  handed  down  from  generation  to 
generation  as  a  sacred  heirloom."  I  have  translated 
this  passage  instead  of  alluding  to  it,  because  I  thought 
it  was  an  occasion  on  which  Herr  Riehl  should  literally 
speak  for  himself. 

It  is,  however,  fair  to  explain  that  modern  men  as 
well  as  modern  women  come  under  his  censure.  All 
the  tendencies  and  all  the  habits  of  modern  life  afflict 
him,  and  he  lashes  out  at  them  without  discrimination, 


64  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

and  with  such  an  entire  lack  of  prophetic  insight  that 
I  have  found  him  consoling.  For  this  book  was 
published  sixteen  years  before  the  Franco-Prussian  War, 
when  Germany,  the  world  must  admit,  proved  that  it 
was  not  decadent.  Yet  every  page  of  it  is  a  Jeremiad, 
an  exhortation  to  his  countryfolk  to  stop  short  on  the 
road  to  ruin.  He  does  not  see  that  the  whole  nation 
is  slowly  and  patiently  girding  its  loins  for  that  mighty 
effort ;  he  believes  it  is  blind,  weak,  and  flighty.  If  he 
had  lived  in  England,  and  a  little  later,  he  would 
certainly  have  talked  about  the  Smart  Set,  Foreign 
Financiers,  and  the  Yellow  Press.  As  he  lived  in 
Germany  fifty  years  ago,  he  scolds  his  countryfolk  for 
living  in  flats.  He  wants  to  know  why  a  family  cannot 
herd  in  one  room  instead  of  scattering  itself  in  several. 
As  for  a  father  who  cannot  endure  the  cry  of  children, 
that  man  should  never  have  been  a  father,  says  Herr 
Riehl.  He  cannot  approve  of  the  dinner  hour  being 
put  off  till  two  o'clock.  Why  not  begin  work  at  five 
and  dine  at  eleven  in  the  good  old  German  way  ?  He 
praises  the  ruinous  elaborate  festivals  that  used  to 
celebrate  family  events,  and  considers  that  the  police 
help  to  destroy  family  life  by  fining  people  who  in 
their  opinion  spend  more  than  they  can  afford  on  a 
wedding  or  a  christening.  He  objects  to  artificial 
Christmas  trees,  and  points  out  that  other  nations  set 
a  tree  in  the  drawing-room,  but  that  Germans  have  it 
in  the  nursery,  the  innermost  sanctum  of  family  life. 
He  arrives  at  some  curious  conclusions  when  he  dis- 
cusses the  German's  habit  of  turning  the  beer-house 
into  a  sort  of  club  that  he  calls  his  Kneipe.  Other 
races  can  drink,  he  says ;  aber  bloss  die  germanischen 
konnen  kneipen — only  the  Germanic  peoples  can  make 
themselves  at  home  in  an  inn.  What  does  the  Stamm- 
gast>  the  regular  guest,  ask  but  the  ways  of  homef 


RIEHL  ON  WOMEN  65 

the  same  chair  every  night,  the  same  corner,  the  same 
glass,  the  same  wine ;  and  where  there  is  a  Stammtisch 
the  same  companions.  He  sees  that  family  life  is 
more  or  less  destroyed  when  the  men  of  the  household 
spend  their  leisure  hours,  and  especially  their  evenings, 
at  an  inn,  but  he  says  that  the  homelike  surroundings 
of  the  Kneipe  prove  the  German's  love  of  home.  In 
fact,  he  suggests  that  even  the  habitual  drunkard  is 
often  a  weak,  amiable  creature  cut  out  for  family  life ; 
only,  he  has  sought  it  at  the  public-house  instead  of 
on  his  own  hearth. 

Herr  Riehl  is,  in  fact,  deeply  concerned  to  see  amongst 
his  countryfolk  a  gradual  slackening  of  family  ties, 
a  widespread  selfish  individualism  amongst  women,  an 
abdication  of  duty  and  authority  amongst  men.  His 
views  about  women  sound  outrageous  to-day,  chiefly 
because  he  wants  to  apply  them  to  all  women  without 
distinction ;  and  also  because  they  display  a  total  want 
of  consideration  for  the  welfare  and  the  wishes  of  women 
themselves.  But  his  position  is  interesting,  because  with 
some  modifications  it  is  the  position  still  taken  by  the 
majority  of  German  men ;  naturally,  not  by  the  most 
advanced  and  intelligent,  but  by  the  average  German 
from  the  Spree  to  the  Danube.  He  thinks  that  woman 
was  made  for  man,  and  that  if  she  has  board,  lodging, 
and  raiment,  according  to  the  means  of  her  menfolk,  she 
has  all  she  can  possibly  ask  of  life.  When  her  menfolk 
are  peasants,  she  must  work  in  the  fields;  when  they 
belong  to  the  middle  or  upper  classes,  her  place  is  in  the 
kitchen  and  the  nursery.  Unless  he  is  exceptionally 
intelligent  he  does  not  understand  that  this  simple  rule 
is  complicated  by  modern  economic  conditions,  and  by 
the  enormous  number  of  women  thrown  on  their  own 
resources.  He  would  send  them  as  Herr  Riehl  did,  to 
the  kitchens  and  nurseries  of  other  people ;  or  he  would 
5 


66  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

give  up  the  problem  in  despair,  as  Herr  Riehl  did, 
admitting  with  a  sigh  that  modern  humanitarianism 
forbids  the  establishment  of  a  lethal  chamber  for  the 
superfluous  members  of  a  weaker  sex. 

The  most  modern  German  women  are  in  direct  op- 
position to  Herr  Riehl,  and  it  must  be  said  that  some  of 
their  leaders  are  enthusiastic  rather  than  sensible.  They 
are  drunk  with  the  freedom  they  claim  in  a  country 
where  women  are  not  even  allowed  to  attend  a  political 
meeting  except  with  the  express  consent  of  the  police. 
In  their  ravings  against  the  tyranny  of  men  they  lose 
all  historical  sense,  just  as  an  American  does  when  he 
describes  a  mediaeval  crime  as  if  it  had  been  committed 
by  a  European  with  a  twentieth-century  conscience. 
They  charge  men  with  keeping  half  humanity  in  a  de- 
grading state  of  slavery,  and  attribute  all  the  sins  of 
civilisation  to  the  enforced  ignorance  and  helplessness 
of  women.  Their  contempt  for  their  masters  is  almost 
beyond  the  German  language  to  express,  eloquently  as 
they  use  it.  They  demand  equality  of  education  and 
opportunity,  but  they  do  not  want  to  be  men.  Far  be 
such  a  desire  from  their  minds.  They  mean  to  be  some- 
thing much  better.  To  what  a  pass  have  men  brought 
the  world,  they  ask  ?  How  much  better  would  manners 
and  morals  and  politics  be  in  the  hands  of  women ! 
They  repel  with  indignation  the  taunt  that  women  have 
no  right  to  govern  the  State  because  their  bodies  are 
too  weak  to  defend  it.  They  point  out  with  a  gleam 
of  sense  and  justice  that  the  mother  of  children  does 
serve  the  State  in  a  supremely  important  way ;  and  for 
that  matter  they  are  willing  to  take  many  State  duties 
on  their  shoulders,  and  to  train  for  them  as  arduously 
and  regularly  as  men  train  for  the  wretched  business  of 
killing  each  other.  They  will  not  mate  with  those  poor 
things — modern  men — under  the  existing  marriage 


RIEHL  ON  WOMEN  67 

laws.  They  refuse  to  be  household  beasts  of  burden  a 
day  longer.  Life,  life  to  the  dregs  with  all  its  joys 
and  all  its  responsibilities,  is  what  they  want,  and  love 
if  it  comes  their  way.  But  not  marriage.  Young 
Siegfrieds  they  ask  for,  young  lions.  Here  one  be- 
wildered reader  rubbed  her  eyes  ;  for  she  had  just  heard 
Siegfried  and  the  Gotterdammerung  again,  and  some- 
times she  reads  in  the  Nibelungenlied\  and  if  ever  a 
man  won  a  woman  with  his  club,  by  muscle  seemingly, 
by  magic  really,  but  anyhow  by  sheer  bodily  strength, 
was  not  that  man  Siegfried  ?  and  was  not  the  woman 
Briinnhilde  ?  And  what  does  the  Siegfried  of  the  Lied 
say  when  his  wife  has  failed  to  keep  a  guard  on  her 
tongue — 

"Man  soil  so  Frauen  ziehen,"  sprach  Siegfried,  "  der  Degen, 

Das  sie  tippig  Reden  lassen  unterwegen. 

Verbiet  es  deinem  Weibe ;  der  meinen  thu'  ich's  auch. 

Ich  scha'me  mich,  wahrlich  um  solchen  iibermuthigen  Brauch." 

And  then,  just  as  if  he  was  one  of  those  Volga- 
Kalmucks  admired  by  Herr  Riehl,  he  beats  poor 
Kriemhilde  black  and  blue. 

"Das  hat  mich  bald  gereuet,"  so  sprach  das  edle  Weib; 
"  Auch  hat  er  so  zerblaiiet  deswegen  meinen  Leib  ! 
Dass  ich  es  je  geredet,  beschwerte  ihm  den  Muth : 
Das  hat  gar  wohl  gerochen  der  Degen  tapfer  und  gut." 

Yet  here  is  the  last  development  in  women,  the 
woman  who  refuses  as  an  outrage  both  the  theory  of 
masculine  superiority  and  the  fact  so  evident  in  Germany 
of  masculine  domination,  here  is  the  self-constituted 
superwoman  calling  as  if  she  was  Eve  to  the  primaeval 
male.  It  may  be  perverse  of  me,  but  my  imagination 
refuses  to  behold  them  mated. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW 

ERMANY  stands  midway  between  France  and 
England  in  its  care  for  its  womenfolk.  French 
parents  consider  marriage  the  proper  career  for  a 
woman,  and  with  logical  good  sense  set  themselves 
from  the  day  of  a  girl's  birth  to  provide  a  dowry  for 
her.  When  she  is  of  a  marriageable  age  they  provide 
the  husband.  They  will  make  great  sacrifices  to 
establish  a  daughter  in  prosperity,  and  they  leave 
nothing  to  chance.  We  leave  everything  to  chance, 
and  the  idea  of  marriage  made  by  bargain  and  without 
love  offends  us.  Such  marriages  are  often  enough 
made  in  England,  but  they  are  never  admitted.  Some 
gloss  of  sentiment  or  of  personal  respect  is  considered 
decent.  But  on  the  whole  in  this  country  a  girl  shifts 
for  herself.  If  she  marries,  well  and  good ;  if  she 
remains  single,  well  and  good  too,  provided  she  can 
earn  her  living  or  has  means.  When  she  has  neither 
means  nor  craft  and  fails  to  marry,  she  is  one  of  the 
most  tragic  figures  in  our  confused  social  hierarchy, 
difficult  to  help,  superfluous.  She  sets  her  hand  to 
this  and  that,  but  she  has  no  grip  on  life.  To  think  of 
her  is  to  invoke  the  very  image  of  failure  and  incom- 
petence. She  flocks  into  every  opening,  blocking  and 
depressing  it ;  as  a  "  help  "  she  becomes  a  byword,  for 
she  has  grown  up  without  learning  to  help  herself  or 

68 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  69 

anybody  else.  If  she  is  a  Protestant  she  has  no  haven. 
Only  people  who  have  set  themselves  to  help  poor 
ladies  know  the  difficulties  of  the  undertaking,  and  the 
miseries  their  prot^g^es  endure. 

Even  in  the  Middle  Ages  the  conscientious  German 
was  doing  more  for  this  helpless  element  of  his  popula- 
tion than  England  and  America  are  doing  to-day.  He 
saw  that  some  of  his  daughters  would  remain  unmarried, 
and  that  if  they  were  gently  bred  he  must  provide  for 
their  future,  and  he  did  this  by  founding  Stifle.  The 
old  Stiff  was  established  by  the  gentlemen  of  some  one 
district,  who  built  a  house  and  contributed  land  and 
money  for  its  maintenance,  so  that  when  they  died  their 
unmarried  daughters  should  still  have  a  suitable  home. 
Some  of  these  old  Stifle  are  very  wealthy  now,  and 
have  buildings  of  great  dignity  and  beauty ;  they  still 
admit  none  but  the  descendants  of  the  men  who  founded 
them,  and  when  they  have  more  money  than  they  need 
to  support  the  Stift  itself,  they  use  it  to  pension  the 
widows  and  endow  the  brides  belonging  to  their  group 
or  families.  In  Hesse-Cassel,  for  instance,  there  is  an 
ancient  Stift  formed  by  the  Ritterschaft  of  the  Duchy 
and  it  is  so  well  off  that  it  can  afford  to  pension  every 
widow  and  fatherless  child,  and  buy  an  outfit  for  every 
bride  whose  name  either  by  marriage  or  descent  entitles 
her  to  its  protection.  The  example  set  by  the  noble 
families  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  followed  in  time  by 
other  classes,  and  Stifle  were  established  all  over 
Germany  for  the  daughters  of  the  bourgeoisie.  They 
grew  in  number  and  variety ;  some  had  a  school 
attached  to  their  endowment  and  some  an  orphanage. 
In  some  the  rule  was  elastic,  in  others  binding.  There 
are  Stifle  from  which  a  woman  may  absent  herself  for 
the  greater  part  of  the  year,  and  yet  draw  an  income 
from  its  funds  and  have  a  room  or  rooms  appointed 


70  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

to  her  use ;  there  are  others  where  residence,  is  com- 
pulsory. Some  are  only  open  to  descendants  of  the 
founders ;  some  sell  vacancies.  A  woman  may  have 
to  wait  year  after  year  for  a  chance  of  getting  in ;  or 
she  may  belong  to  one  that  will  admit  her  at  a  certain 
age.  In  many  there  is  a  presiding  lady,  the  Domina 
or  Abbess ;  and  when  the  present  Emperor  visited  a 
well-known  Stiff  lately  he  gave  the  Abbess  a  shepherd's 
crook  with  which  to  rule  her  flock.  Some  are  just  sets 
of  rooms  with  certain  privileges  of  light  and  firing 
attached.  Their  constitution  varies  greatly,  according 
to  the  class  provided  for  and  the  means  available.  But 
you  cannot  be  much  amongst  Germans  without  meeting 
women  who  have  been  educated,  endowed,  helped  in 
sickness,  or  supported  in  old  age  by  one  of  these 
organisations.  You  come  across  girls  of  gentle  birth 
but  with  no  means  who  have  been  brought  up  in  a 
Stiff,  or  you  hear  of  well-to-do  girls  whose  parents 
have  paid  high  for  their  schooling  in  one.  You  know 
the  elderly  unmarried  daughter  of  an  official  living  on 
his  pension,  and  you  find  that  though  she  has  never 
been  taught  to  earn  her  bread  she  looks  forward  to  old 
age  with  serenity,  because  when  she  was  a  child  her 
relations  bought  her  into  a  Stiff  that  will  give  her  at 
the  age  of  fifty  free  quarters,  fire,  light,  and  an  income 
on  which,  with  her  habits  of  thrift,  she  can  live  com- 
fortably. Another  woman  engaged  in  private  teaching 
and  a  good  deal  battered  by  the  struggle  for  life,  comes 
to  you  some  day  more  radiant  than  you  have  ever  seen 
her,  and  you  find  that  influential  friends  have  put  her 
case  before  a  Stiff,  and  that  it  has  granted  her  two 
charming  rooms  with  free  fire  and  light.  I  heard  of  a 
cook  the  other  day  who,  after  many  years  of  faithful 
service,  left  her  employers  to  spend  her  old  age  in  a 
Stift.  No  social  stigma  attaches  to  the  women  living 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  71 

in  one,  and  they  are  as  free,  in  some  cases  as  well  placed 
and  well  born,  as  the  English  women  living  at  Hampton 
Court.  Some  friction  and  some  gossip  is  presumably 
inevitable  wherever  women  herd  together  in  an  unnatural 
segregation  from  men  and  children.  But  at  any  rate 
the  German  Stiff  saves  many  a  woman  from  the  tragic 
struggle  with  old  age  and  poverty  to  which  the  penniless 
incapable  spinster  is  condemned  in  our  country.  It 
may  not  be  a  paradise,  but  it  is  a  haven.  As  I  said  at 
the  beginning,  the  Frenchman  dowers  and  marries  his 
girl,  the  German  buys  her  a  refuge,  the  Englishman 
leaves  her  to  fate. 

On  the  whole,  the  German  believes  that  the  woman's 
province  is  within  the  limits  of  the  household.  He 
wants  her  to  be  a  home-maker,  and  in  Germany  what 
"  he  "  wants  her  to  be  still  fixes  the  standard.  But  as 
the  census  reveals  the  existence  of  large  numbers  of 
single  women,  and  as  "  he  "  often  has  a  thoughtful  and 
benevolent  mind,  more  and  more  is  done  there  every 
year  to  prepare  those  women  who  must  earn  their  living 
to  earn  it  capably.  It  has  been  understood  for  some 
time  past  that  Herr  Riehl's  plan  of  finding  a  family  roof 
for  every  woman  without  one  presents  difficulties  where 
there  are  400,000  odd  women  to  provide  for  in  this 
way.  One  of  the  people  who  first  saw  this  clearly,  and 
supported  every  sensible  undertaking  that  came  to 
the  assistance  of  women,  was  the  Empress  Frederick ; 
and  one  of  the  institutions  that  she  encouraged  and 
esteemed  from  the  beginning  was  the  Lette-Verein  in 
Berlin. 

The  Lette-Verein,  named  after  its  originator,  Dr.  A. 
Lette,  was  founded,  says  its  prospectus,  to  further  the 
education  of  women  and  to  increase  the  efficiency  of 
women  dependent  on  themselves  for  support.  What 
it  actually  does  is  to  train  for  housekeeping  and  office 


72  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

work,  and  for  some  trades.  Its  interest  lies  in  the 
ordered  and  thoughtful  provision  it  makes  both  for  the 
woman  who  means  to  devote  herself  body  and  soul  to 
the  family ;  and  for  the  woman  who  prefers,  or  who  is 
driven,  to  stand  in  the  market-place  and  compete  with 
men.  The  Lette-Verein  does  not  train  servants  or 
admit  servants  to  its  classes.  It  occupies  a  large  block 
of  buildings  in  the  west  of  Berlin,  for  its  various  schools 
and  hostels  require  a  great  deal  of  room.  Students 
who  live  in  the  city  can  attend  daily  classes  ;  but  those 
who  come  from  a  distance  can  have  board  and  residence 
for  £1  a  week  or  less.  Once  a  week  strangers  are 
allowed  to  see  the  Lette-Haus  at  work,  and  when  I 
went  there  we  were  taken  first  to  the  kitchens,  where 
the  future  housewives  of  Germany  were  learning  to 
cook.  The  stoves  were  the  sensible  low  closed-in  ones 
used  on  the  continent,  and  the  vessels  were  either 
earthenware  or  metal,  kept  brightly  polished  both 
inside  and  out.  The  students  were  preparing  and 
cooking  various  dishes,  but  the  one  that  interested  me 
was  the  Leipziger  Allerlei^  because  I  compared  it  with 
the  "  herbage  "  an  English  plain  cook  throws  into  water 
and  sends  up  half  drained,  half  cold,  and  often  enough 
half  clean.  I  could  not  stop  to  count  the  vegetables 
required  for  Leipziger  Allerlei,  but  there  seemed  to  be 
at  least  six  varieties,  all  cooked  separately,  and  after- 
wards combined  with  a  properly  made  sauce.  The 
Englishman  may  say  that  he  prefers  his  half-cooked 
cabbage,  and  the  English  woman,  if  she  is  a  plain  cook, 
will  certainly  say  that  the  cabbage  gives  her  as  much 
trouble  as  she  means  to  take ;  but  the  German  woman 
knows  that  when  she  marries  her  husband  will  want 
Leipziger  Allerlei,  so  she  goes  to  the  Lette-Haus  and 
learns  how  to  make  it.  Even  the  young  doctors  of 
Berlin  learn  cooking  at  the  Lette-Haus.  Special 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  73 

classes  for  invalid  cookery  are  held  on  their  behalf, 
and  are  said  to  be  popular  and  extremely  useful. 
Certainly  doctors  whose  work  is  amongst  the  poor  or 
in  country  places  must  often  wish  they  understood 
something  about  the  preparation  of  food.  The  girls 
who  go  to  the  Lette-Haus  are  taught  the  whole  art  of 
housekeeping,  from  the  proper  way  to  scour  a  pan 
or  scrub  a  floor  to  fine  laundry  work  and  darning, 
and  even  how  to  set  and  serve  a  table.  An  intelligent 
girl  who  had  been  right  through  the  courses  at  the 
Lette-Haus  could  train  an  inexperienced  servant,  because 
'she  would  understand  exactly  how  things  ought  to  be 
done,  how  much  time  they  should  take,  and  what 
amount  of  fatigue  they  involve.  If  her  servants  failed 
her  she  would  be  independent  of  them.  Some  students 
at  the  Lette-Haus  do,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  form  a 
household  that  is  carried  on  without  a  single  servant, 
and  is  on  this  account  the  most  interesting  branch  of 
the  organisation.  The  girls  are  from  fourteen  to 
sixteen  years  of  age,  and  they  pay  £2$  a  year  for 
instruction,  board,  and  lodging.  Some  of  them  are 
the  daughters  of  landed  proprietors,  and  some  will 
eventually  earn  a  living  as  "  supports  of  the  housewife," 
an  honourable  career  shortly  referred  to  by  Germans 
as  eine  Stiitze.  They  were  a  happy,  healthy  looking 
lot  of  girls.  They  wear  neat  serviceable  gowns  while 
they  are  at  work,  aprons,  linen  sleeves  to  protect  their 
stuff  ones,  and  pretty  blue  handkerchiefs  tied  like  tur- 
bans over  their  hair.  Some  of  them  were  busy  at  the 
wash-tub,  and  this  seemed  heavy  work  for  girls  of  that 
age.  The  various  kinds  of  work  are  done  in  turn,  and 
the  student  when  her  washing  week  comes  round  is 
employed  in  this  way  three  hours  every  morning.  On 
alternate  days  she  mangles  clothes,  and  in  the  after- 
noons she  sews.  Our  guide  would  not  admit  that  three 


74  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

hours  at  the  wash-tub  could  be  too  great  a  strain  on  a 
half-developed  girl,  and  it  is  a  question  for  medical 
wisdom  to  decide.  The  cooking  and  ironing  looked 
hot  work,  but  these  young  German  girls  were  cheerfully 
and  thoroughly  learning  how  to  do  them,  and  whether 
they  marry  or  stay  single  their  knowledge  of  these  arts 
will  be  of  inestimable  use  in  later  years.  I  heard  of 
an  able-bodied  Englishwoman  the  other  day  who  took 
to  her  bed  in  tears  because  her  maids  left  her  suddenly. 
She  could  not  have  roasted  a  leg  of  mutton  or  made 
the  plainest  pudding.  This  is  the  school  of  the  future, 
said  our  enthusiastic  guide  when  we  went  to  see  the 
"children"  at  work  at  the  Lette-Haus\  and  I, 
remembering  my  helpless  Englishwoman,  agreed  with 
her.  The  children's  afternoons  are  mostly  given  to 
needlework,  and  they  are  instructed  in  the  prospectus 
not  to  bring  new  clothes  with  them,  because  it  is 
desired  that  they  should  learn  how  to  mend  old  ones 
neatly  and  correctly.  They  are  taught  to  darn  and 
patch  so  finely  that  the  repair  cannot  easily  be 
discovered  ;  they  make  sets  of  body  linen  for  themselves, 
three  finely  sewn  men's  linen  shirts,  a  gown  for  work- 
days, and  some  elaborate  blouses.  In  another  part  of 
the  Lette-Haus,  where  students  were  being  trained  as 
expert  embroiderers  and  dressmakers,  we  were  shown 
pieces  of  flowered  brocade  into  which  patches  had  been 
so  skilfully  inserted  that  you  could  only  find  them  by 
holding  them  up  to  the  light.  In  the  bookbinding 
department  there  were  amateur  and  professional 
students.  The  professionals  apprentice  themselves  for 
three  years,  and  from  the  first  receive  a  small  weekly 
wage.  The  length  of  their  apprenticeship  is  determined 
by  the  length  of  time  prescribed  for  men,  and  not  by 
what  is  necessary  for  their  training.  I  asked  if  they 
easily  found  regular  work  later,  and  was  told  that  at 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  75 

present  the  demand  for  expert  women  bookbinders 
exceeded  the  supply.  The  Lette-Haus  trains  women 
to  be  photographers,  printers,  and  clerks.  In  fact,  with 
German  thoroughness  and  foresight  it  does  all  one  big 
institution  can  to  save  the  women  of  the  nation  from 
the  curse  of  incompetence.  It  turns  them  out  efficient 
housewives  or  efficient  craftswomen,  according  to  their 
needs. 

The  German  woman  of  to-day  has  travelled  far  from 
the  ideal  set  up  by  Herr  Riehl,  and  still  upheld  by  his 
disciples.  Women  have  found  that  the  realities  of  life 
'clash  with  that  particular  ideal,  and  rudely  upset  it. 
Just  like  any  man,  a  woman  wants  bread  when  she  is 
hungry,  and  when  there  is  no  man  to  give  it  to  her  she 
must  raven  for  it  herself.  She  has  been  driven  from  a 
family  hearth  that  has  no  fire  on  it,  and  from  a  family 
roof  that  cannot  afford  her  shelter.  On  the  whole,  if 
I  may  judge  from  personal  observation,  it  has  done 
her  good.  The  traditional  old  maid  is  dying  out  in 
Germany  as  assuredly  as  she  is  dying  out  in  England, 
and  who  shall  regret  her?  Her  outlook  was  narrow, 
her  temper  often  soured.  She  had  neither  self-reliance 
nor  charm.  She  was  that  sad,  silly  spectacle,  a  clinging 
plant  without  support.  Now  that  she  is  learning  to 
grow  on  her  own  account,  she  finds  that  there  is  a  good 
deal  in  life  a  sensible  plant  can  enjoy  without  clinging. 
The  German  "  old  maid  "  of  the  twentieth  century  has, 
like  her  English  sister,  transformed  herself  into  a 
"  bachelor,"  a  person  who  for  this  reason  or  that  has 
not  married,  and  who  nevertheless  has  a  cheerful  time. 
She  has  her  own  work,  she  often  has  her  own  flat,  and 
if  she  lives  in  one  of  the  big  cities  she  has  her  own  club. 

There  are  at  present  three  Ladies'  Clubs  in  Berlin 
all  flourishing.  The  subscription  to  the  Berliner 
Frauenklub  is  only  six  marks  a  year,  yet  it  provides 


76  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

the  members  with  comfortably  furnished  rooms  and 
well  cooked  meals  at  low  prices.  A  member  of  this 
club  can  dine  for  ninepence,  and  have  a  hot  dish  from 
fourpence  to  sevenpence.  She  has  access  to  a  library 
of  1 300  volumes,  to  the  leading  papers  and  reviews, 
and  to  magazines  in  four  languages.  She  can  entertain 
women  at  the  club,  but  not  men ;  though  she  can  meet 
men  there  at  certain  hours  of  the  day.  Social  gather- 
ings of  various  kinds  are  arranged  to  meet  the  various 
needs  and  ages  of  the  members ;  and  one  night  a  week 
four  or  five  card-tables  are  set  out,  so  that  the  older 
members  can  have  a  quiet  game  of  skat  or  whist. 
We  wonder  what  Herr  Riehl  would  say  if  he  could 
see  them. 

Another  German  Ladies'  Club  in  Berlin  is  the 
Deutscher  Frauenklub,  and  it  is  nicknamed  the 
Millionaire's  Club  because  the  subscription  is  twenty- 
five  shillings.  It  is  a  rather  smarter  club  than  the 
other,  and  has  a  charming  set  of  rooms.  There  are 
about  450  members.  The  Third  Club  is  a  branch  of 
the  London  Lyceum,  and  it  has  aroused  great  interest 
and  attention  in  Berlin,  not  only  because  it  is  on  a  more 
magnificent  scale  than  the  other  clubs,  but  because  of 
the  brave  effort  it  makes  to  unite  the  women  of  all 
nations  and  help  them.  Most  of  the  women  distin- 
guished in  art  and  literature  have  joined  it. 

I  began  this  chapter  by  saying  something  of  the 
Stift,  the  refuge  for  unmarried  women  that  Germany 
established  in  the  Middle  Ages  and  still  preserves.  I 
end  it  with  the  Lyceum  Club,  that  latest  manifestation 
of  a  modern  woman's  desire  to  help  her  own  sex.  The 
character  of  these  institutions  and  their  history  are 
both  significant.  In  other  days  men  helped  women ; 
in  these  days  women  try  to  help  themselves.  The 
Stiff  gives  a  woman  bread  and  shelter  in  idleness ;  the 


THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  77 

aim  of  the  Lyceum  Club  is  not  to  give,  but  to  bring 
women  together  and  to  encourage  good  work.  The 
Stifte  are  still  crowded  and  the  Lyceum  flourishes,  for 
in  our  time  the  old  woman  jostles  the  new.  But  the 
new  woman  has  arrived,  and  is  making  herself  felt ;  with 
amazing  force  and  swiftness,  you  must  admit  when  you 
reflect  on  the  position  of  women  in  Germany  thirty 
or  forty  years  ago. 


CHAPTER  IX 
GIRLHOOD 

IN  the  Memoiren  einer  Idealistin,  those  genuine  and 
interesting  Memoirs  that  have  been  so  widely  read 
in  Germany  of  late,  Malvida  von  Meysenbug,  the 
daughter  of  a  highly  placed  official  at  a  small  German 
Court,  describes  her  confirmation  day  and  the  long 
period  of  preparation  and  the  spiritual  struggle  that 
preceded  it. 

"  During  a  whole  year  my  sister  and  I  went  twice  a 
week  to  the  pastor's  house  to  be  instructed  in  the 
dogma  of  the  Protestant  Church,"  she  says.  ..."  The 
ceremony  was  to  be  on  Sunday.  The  Friday  before 
we  had  our  last  lesson.  Our  teacher  was  deeply 
moved ;  with  tears  in  his  eyes  he  spoke  to  us  of  the 
holiness  and  importance  of  the  act  we  were  about  to 
perform.  .  .  .  According  to  the  German  custom 
amongst  girls  of  the  better  classes,  we  put  on  black 
silk  dresses  for  the  first  time  for  our  confirmation,  and 
this  ceremonial  attire  calmed  me  and  did  me  good. 
Our  maid  took  special  pains  with  our  toilet,  as  if  we 
were  going  to  a  worldly  entertainment,  and  chattered 
more  than  usual.  It  jarred  on  me,  but  it  helped  to 
distract  my  thoughts.  When  it  was  time  to  start  I 
said  Good-bye  to  my  mother  with  deep  emotion,  and 
asked  her  to  forgive  me  my  faults.  My  sister  and  I 

were  to  go  to  the  pastor's  house  on  our  way  to  church. 

78 


GIRLHOOD  79 

There  we  found  everything  strewn  with  flowers.  Our 
teacher  received  us  in  his  priestly  robes,  and  spoke  to 
all  of  us  so  lovingly  and  earnestly  that  the  most 
indifferent  were  moved.  When  the  church  bells  began 
to  peal  our  procession  set  out,  the  pastor  at  its  head, 
and  we  following  two  by  two.  The  way  from  the 
rectory  to  the  church  was  strewn  with  flowers,  and  the 
church  was  decked  with  them.  The  Choral  Society  of 
the  town,  to  which  some  of  our  best  friends  belonged, 
received  us  with  a  beautiful  hymn.  I  felt  on  wings,  I 
prayed  to  God  that  this  hour  might  be  blessed  to  me 
throughout  my  life.  The  sermon  preached  by  the 
voice  that  had  so  often  affected  me  made  me  calm. 
When  the  preacher  required  us  to  make  our  confession 
of  faith,  I  uttered  my  '  Yes '  with  firm  assurance. 
Then  I  knelt  before  him  with  the  rest  to  receive  his 
blessing.  He  put  his  hands  on  our  heads,  accepted  us 
as  members  of  the  Protestant  Church,  and  blessed  each 
one  separately,  and  with  a  special  verse  from  the  Bible. 
To  me  he  said,  '  Be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will 
give  thee  a  crown  of  life.'  My  heart  echoed  the 
solemn  vow :  Faithful  unto  death.  The  choir  greeted 
the  young  Christians  with  a  song  of  victory.  We  did 
not  return  to  the  seats  reserved  for  candidates,  but  sat 
with  our  parents  and  relatives  waiting  with  them  until 
everyone  had  left  the  church,  except  those  who  wished 
to  partake  of  the  Holy  Communion." 

Malvida  von  Meysenbug  is  too  much  absorbed  in  her 
intense  spiritual  experiences  to  describe  the  lighter  side 
of  confirmation  in  Germany,  which  celebrates  it  with 
presents  and  a  gathering  of  friends.  A  girl  gets  her 
first  black  silk  gown  for  the  occasion,  and  both  boys 
and  girls  get  as  many  presents  as  they  do  at  Christmas 
or  on  a  birthday.  These  are  all  set  out  for  the 
inspection  of  the  friends  who  assemble  at  the  house 


8o  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

after  the  religious  ceremony,  to  congratulate  the  parents 
and  the  youngest  member  of  their  church.  There  is  an 
entertainment  of  coffee,  chocolate,  and  cakes  ;  and  a  few 
days  later  both  boys  and  girls  return  these  visits  of 
congratulation  in  the  company  of  their  parents.  Some 
years  ago,  when  a  girl  had  been  confirmed,  she  was 
considered  officially  grown  up  and  marriageable,  and 
entered  straight  away  into  the  gaieties  that  are  sup- 
posed to  lead  to  marriage.  But  the  modern  tendency 
in  Germany  is  to  prolong  girlhood,  and  the  wife  of 
sixteen  is  as  rare  there  amongst  the  educated  classes 
as  it  is  here. 

Amongst  the  Jews  in  Germany  marriages  are  still 
arranged  for  the  young  people  by  their  elders ;  often, 
as  in  France,  through  the  intervention  of  friends,  but 
also  by  the  business-like  office  of  the  marriage  broker. 
It  need  hardly  be  said,  perhaps,  that  the  refined  and 
enlightened  Jews  refuse  to  marry  in  this  way.  They 
insist  on  choosing  their  own  mate,  and  even  on  over- 
looking some  disparity  of  fortune.  Unorthodox  Jews 
marry  Christian  women,  and  the  Jewish  heiress  constantly 
allies  herself  and  her  money  with  a  title  or  a  uniform. 
In  the  latter  case,  however,  the  nuptials  are  just  as 
business-like  as  if  the  Schadchan  had  arranged  them 
and  received  his  commission.  The  Graf  or  the  Major 
gets  the  gold  he  lacks,  and  the  rich  Jewess  gets  social 
prestige  or  the  nearest  approach  to  it  possible  in  a 
Jew-baiting  land.  An  ardent  anti-Semite  told  me 
that  these  mixed  marriages  were  not  fertile,  and  that  if 
only  everyone  of  Jewish  blood  would  marry  a  Christian, 
the  country  would  in  course  of  time  be  cleared  of  a  race 
that,  she  solemnly  assured  me,  is  as  great  a  curse  to  it, 
and  as  inferior  as  the  negro  in  America.  But  as  she 
was  an  anti-Semite  with  a  sense  of  humour  she  admitted 
that  the  remedy  was  a  slow  one  and  difficult  to  enforce. 


GIRLHOOD  8 1 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Jews  marry  mostly  amongst 
themselves  in  Germany,  and  men  are  still  living  in 
Frankfurt  and  other  large  cities  who  have  made 
comfortable  fortunes  by  the  brokerage  they  charged  on 
their  matchmaking.  Formerly  a  prosperous  unmarried 
Jew  used  to  be  besieged  by  offers  from  these  agents ; 
and  so  were  men  who  could  give  their  daughters  a 
good  dowry.  The  better-class  Jews  do  not  employ 
them  nowadays,  but  their  marriages  are  suggested  and 
arranged  much  as  marriages  are  in  France.  A  young 
merchant  of  Berlin  thinks  it  is  time  to  settle  down,  or 
-perhaps  wants  a  little  capital  to  enlarge  his  business. 
He  consults  an  uncle  in  Frankfurt.  The  uncle  tells  his 
old  friend,  the  father  of  several  daughters,  that  the  most 
handsome,  industrious,  and  accomplished  man  the  world 
has  ever  seen,  his  own  nephew,  in  fact,  thinks  of 
marriage,  and  that  his  conditions  are  this  and  that ; 
he  tells  his  nephew  that  the  most  beautiful  and  amiable 
creature  in  Germany,  a  brilliant  musician,  a  fluent 
linguist,  a  devoted  daughter,  and  a  person  of  simple 
housewifely  tastes,  lives  next  door  to  him,  the  uncle. 
Except  for  the  housewifely  tastes,  it  sounds,  and  in  fact 
is,  rather  like  a  courtship  in  the  Arabian  Nights  so  far. 
The  prince  hears  of  the  princess,  and  without  having 
seen  her  sets  out  to  seek  her  hand.  The  young 
merchant  pays  a  flying  visit  to  Frankfurt,  is  presented 
to  the  most  beautiful  creature  in  Germany,  finds  her 
passable,  has  a  talk  to  her  father  as  business-like  as  a 
talk  between  two  solicitors,  proposes,  is  accepted,  and 
at  once  becomes  the  most  ardent  lover  the  world  has 
ever  seen. 

Amongst    Christians    marriages    are    certainly    not 

arranged  for  girls  in  this  matter-of-course  way,  and  so 

"  old  maids  "  abound.     Girls  without  money  have  far 

less  chance  of  marriage  in  Germany  than  in   England, 

6 


82  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

where  young  people  mate  as  they  please  and  where  a 
man  expects  to  support  his  wife  entirely ;  while  the 
spectacle,  quite  common  here,  of  girls  with  a  good  deal 
of  money  remaining  single  from  various  reasons,  some- 
times actually  from  want  of  opportunity  to  marry,  this 
every-day  occurrence  amongst  the  English  better 
classes  is  unknown  on  the  continent.  In  her  powerful 
novel  Aus  guter  Familie,  Gabrielle  Reuter  describes 
the  life  of  a  German  girl  whose  parents  cannot  give 
her  a  dowry,  and  who  is  doomed  in  consequence  to  old 
maidhood  and  to  all  the  disappointments,  restrictions, 
and  humiliations  of  unsought  women.  While  women 
look  to  marriage  and  nothing  else  for  happiness,  there 
must  be  such  lives  in  every  monogamous  country, 
where  they  outnumber  the  men ;  but  in  England  a 
woman's  marriage  is  much  more  a  matter  of  chance 
and  charm  than  of  money.  If  she  is  poor  and  misses 
her  chance  she  is  worse  off  than  the  German,  for  she 
has  no  Stiff  provided  for  her ;  but  if  she  is  attractive 
she  is  just  as  likely  to  marry  without  a  fortune  as  with 
one.  Those  German  women  who  consider  their  ideas 
"  progressive  "  have  taken  up  a  new  cry  of  late,  a  cry 
about  every  woman's  "  right "  to  motherhood  ;  but  they 
do  not  seem  to  have  found  a  satisfactory  way  of 
securing  this  right  to  the  400,000  women  who  out- 
number the  men.  One  learned  professor  wrote  a 
pamphlet  advocating  polygamy,  but  his  proposal  did 
not  have  the  success  he  no  doubt  felt  it  deserved. 
The  women  who  discuss  these  questions,  in  magazines 
they  edit  and  mostly  write  themselves,  said  that  his 
arguments  were  all  conducted  from  the  man's  point 
of  view,  and  were  most  reprehensible.  Their  own  chief 
aim  at  present  is  to  protect  the  mothers  of  illegitimate 
children,  and  this  seems  a  natural  and  proper  thing  for 
the  women  of  any  community  to  do.  Otherwise  they 


GIRLHOOD  83 

are  not  a  united  body.  There  are  moderates  and 
immoderates  amongst  them,  and  as  I  am  a  moderate 
myself  in  such  matters,  I  think  those  who  go  all  lengths 
are  lunatics.  It  makes  one  open  one's  eyes  to  go  to 
Germany  to-day  with  one's  old-fashioned  ideas  of  the 
German  Frau,  and  hear  what  she  is  doing  in  her  desire 
to  reform  society  and  inaugurate  a  new  code  of  morals. 
She  does  not  even  wait  till  she  is  married  to  speak  with 
authority.  On  the  contrary,  she  says  that  marriage  is 
degrading,  and  that  temporary  unions  are  more  to  the 
honour  and  profit  of  women.  "  Dear  Aunt  S.,"  I  heard 
of  one  girl  writing  to  a  venerable  relative,  "  I  want  you 
to  congratulate  me  on  my  happiness.  I  am  about  to 
be  united  with  the  man  I  love,  and  we  shall  live 
together  (in  freier  Ehe)  till  one  of  us  is  tired  of  it." 
A  German  lady  of  wide  views  and  worldly  knowledge 
told  me  a  girl  had  lately  sent  her  a  little  volume  of 
original  poems  that  she  could  only  describe  as  unfit 
for  publication ;  yet  she  knew  the  girl  and  thought  her 
a  harmless  creature.  She  was  presumably  a  goose  who 
wanted  to  cackle  in  chorus.  This  same  lady  met 
another  girl  in  the  gallery  of  an  artist  who  belonged  to 
what  Mr.  Gilbert  calls  the  "  fleshly  school."  "  Ah  !  " 
said  the  girl  to  my  friend,  "  this  is  where  I  feel  at 
home."  One  of  these  immoderates,  on  the  authority 
of  Plato,  recommended  at  a  public  meeting  that  girls 
should  do  gymnastics  unclothed.  Some  of  them  are 
men-haters,  some  in  the  interests  of  their  sex  are  all 
for  free  love.  None  of  them  accept  the  domination  of 
men  in  theory,  so  I  think  that  the  facts  of  life  in  their 
own  country  must  often  be  unpleasantly  forced  on 
them.  I  discussed  the  movement,  which  is  a  marked 
one  in  Germany  at  present,  with  two  women  whose 
experience  and  good  sense  made  their  opinion  valuable. 
But  they  did  not  agree.  One  said  that  the  excesses 


84  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

of  these  people  were  the  outcome  of  long  repression, 
and  would  wear  out  in  time.  The  other  thought  the 
movement  would  go  on  and  grow  ;  which  was  as  much 
as  to  say  that  she  thought  the  old  morals  were  dead. 
Undoubtedly  they  are  dead  in  some  sets  in  Germany 
to-day.  You  hear  of  girls  of  good  family  who  have 
asserted  their  "  right  to  motherhood  "  without  marriage ; 
and  you  hear  of  other  girls  who  refuse  to  marry  because 
they  will  not  make  vows  or  accept  conditions  they  con- 
sider humiliating.  These  views  do  not  attract  large 
numbers  ;  probably  never  will.  But  they  are  sufficiently 
widespread  to  express  themselves  in  many  modern 
essays,  novels,  and  pamphlets,  and  even  to  support 
several  magazines.  The  women  holding  them  are  of 
various  types  and  quality,  and  are  by  no  manner  of 
means  agreed  with  each  other;  while  those  women 
who  are  working  steadily  and  discreetly  for  the  progress 
of  their  sex  condemn  the  extreme  party,  and  consider 
them  a  check  on  all  real  advancement. 

The  German  girl,  then,  is  not  always  the  simple 
creature  tradition  paints  her.  At  any  rate  she  reads 
novels  and  sees  plays  that  would  have  been  forbidden 
to  her  mother.  Nevertheless  she  is  as  a  rule  just  as 
happy  as  a  girl  should  be  when  the  man  of  her  dreams 
asks  her  to  marry  him.  In  other  days  a  proposal  of 
marriage  was  a  ceremonial  in  Germany.  A  man  had 
to  put  on  evening  dress  for  the  occasion,  and  carry  a 
bouquet  with  him.  "  Oh  yes,"  said  a  German  friend  of 
mine,  "  this  is  still  done  sometimes.  A  little  while  ago 
a  cousin  of  mine  in  Mainz  was  seen  coming  home  in 
evening  dress  by  broad  daylight  carrying  his  bouquet. 
The  poor  fellow  had  been  refused."  But  in  these 
laxer  times  a  man  is  spared  such  an  ordeal.  It  is 
more  usual  in  Germany  than  in  England  to  speak  to  a 
girl's  father  before  proposing  to  her,  but  even  this  is 


GIRLHOOD  85 

not  invariable  nowadays.  Young  people  make  their 
own  opportunities.  "  Last  year  my  brother  proposed 
to  his  present  wife  in  the  woods  near  Baden  while 
they  gathered  Waldmeister,"  said  a  young  German  to 
a  girl  he  ardently  admired.  "  It  will  be  in  flower  next 
week,  and  your  parents  have  just  arranged  that  I  may 
meet  them  at  the  Alte  Schloss  in  time  for  dinner. 
After  dinner  we  will  walk  in  the  woods — nicht  wahr  ?  " 
But  the  girl,  as  it  happened,  did  not  wish  to  receive  a 
proposal  of  marriage  from  this  young  man,  so  she  took 
care  not  to  walk  in  the  woods  and  gather  Waldmeister 
with  him.  It  is  often  said  that  the  sexes  herd  separately 
in  Germany,  and  do  not  meet  each  other  much.  But 
this  always  seems  to  me  one  of  the  things  said  by 
people  who  have  looked  at  Germans  and  not  lived 
amongst  them.  A  nation  that  has  such  an  intimate 
home  life,  and  is  on  the  whole  poor,  receives  its  friends 
in  an  intimate  informal  way.  Young  men  have 
different  occupations  and  interests  from  girls,  but  when 
they  are  admitted  to  a  family  they  are  often  admitted 
on  terms  of  easy  friendship.  In  London  you  may  ask 
a  young  man  with  others  to  dinner  at  intervals,  and 
never  get  to  know  him ;  in  Berlin  you  ask  him  without 
others  to  supper,  and  soon  get  to  know  him  very  well. 
Besides,  a  German  cannot  endure  life  long  without  an 
Ausflug  or  a  Landpartie,  and  when  the  family  plans  one 
it  includes  one  or  two  of  its  friends. 

When  two  Germans  do  get  engaged  they  let  their 
world  know  of  it.  A  betrothal  there  is  not  the 
informal  flimsy  contract  it  often  is  with  us.  They 
begin  by  publishing  the  event  in  their  newspapers,  and 
sending  round  printed  forms  announcing  it  to  their 
friends.  In  the  newspaper  the  announcement  is  rather 
bare  compared  with  the  advertisement  of  other  family 
events,  "  Engaged.  Frl,  Martha  Raekelwitz  mit  Hrn, 


86  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

Ingenieur  Julius  Prinz  Dresden- Hamburg"  is  con- 
sidered sufficient.  But  the  printed  intimations  sent 
round  on  gilt-edged  paper  or  cardboard  to  the  friends 
of  the  contracting  parties  are  more  communicative. 
On  one  side  the  parents  have  the  honour  to  announce 
the  engagement  of  their  daughter  Anna  to  Mr.  So-and- 
So,  and  on  the  other  side  Mr.  So-and-So  announces  his 
engagement  to  Miss  Anna.  Here  is  a  reproduction  of 
such  a  form,  with  nothing  altered  except  the  actual 
names  and  addresses.  On  the  left-hand  side  of  the 
double  sheet  of  cartridge  paper  the  parents  of  the 
Braut  have  their  say — 

"  Die  Verlobung  ihrer  Tochter  Pauline  mit  Herrn 
Referendar  Dr.  jur.  Heinrich  Schmidt  in  Berlin  beehren 
sich  ergebenst  anzuzeigen. 

Geh.  Regierungsrat  Dr.  EuGEN  BRAND 
Konigl.  Gymnasialdirektor  und 
FRAU  HELENE,  geb.  ENGEL 

STUTTGART,  imjuni  1906 
Tiergarten  7  " 

Then  on  the  opposite  page  the  future  bridegroom 
speaks  for  himself — 

"Meine  Verlobung  mit  Fraulein  Pauline  Brand, 
Tochter  des  Konigl.  Gymnasialdirektors  Herrn  Geh. 
Regierungsrat  Dr.  Eugen  Brand  und  seiner  Frau  Ge- 
mahlin  Helene,  geb.  Engel,  in  Stuttgart,  beehre  ich 
mich  ergebenst  anzuzeigen. 

Dr.  jur.  HEINRICH  SCHMIDT 

Referendar 
BERLIN,  im  /uni  1906 

Kurfurstendamm  2000  " 


GIRLHOOD  87 

Directly  these  forms  have  been  circulated,  all  the 
friends  who  have  received  one  and  live  near  enough 
pay  a  visit  of  congratulation  to  the  bride's  parents,  and 
soon  after  the  betrothed  couple  return  these  visits  with 
some  ceremony.  It  is  quite  impossible,  by  the  way,  to 
talk  of  Germans  who  are  officially  engaged  without 
calling  them  the  bride  and  bridegroom.  They  plight 
their  troth  with  the  plain  gold  rings  that  will  be  their 
wedding  rings,  and  this  stage  of  their  union  is  celebrated 
with  as  much  ceremony  and  merrymaking  as  the  actual 
wedding.  The  Germans  are  giving  up  so  many  of  their 
quaint  poetical  customs  that  the  girl  of  to-day  probably 
wears  a  fine  diamond  engagement  ring  instead  of  the 
old-fashioned  gold  one.  But  the  ring  with  which  her 
mother  and  grandmother  plighted  their  troth  was  the 
ring  with  which  they  were  wedded,  and  when  Chamisso 
wrote  Du  Ring  an  meinem  Finger  he  was  not  writing 
of  diamonds.  All  the  tenderness  and  poetry  of  Ger- 
many go  out  to  lovers,  and  the  thought  of  a  German 
bride  and  bridegroom  flashes  through  the  mind  with 
thoughts  of  flowers  and  moonlight  and  nightingales. 
At  least,  it  does  if  you  can  associate  them  with  the 
poems  of  Heine  and  Chamisso,  with  the  songs  of 
Schumann,  and  with  the  caressing  intimate  talk  of  the 
German  tongue  unloosed  by  love.  But  your  experi- 
ence is  just  as  likely  to  play  you  the  unkindest  trick, 
and  remind  you  of  German  lovers  whose  uncouth  public 
endearments  made  everyone  not  to  the  manner  born 
uncomfortable. 

When  the  bride  and  bridegroom  live  in  the  same 
town,  and  know  a  large  number  of  people,  they  are 
overdone  with  festivities  from  the  moment  of  betrothal 
to  the  day  of  marriage.  The  round  of  entertainments 
begins  with  a  gala  dinner  given  by  the  bride's  father, 
and  this  is  followed  by  invitations  from  all  the  relatives 


88  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

and  friends  on  either  side.  When  you  receive  a  German 
Brautpaar  they  should  be  the  guests  of  honour,  and  if 
you  can  hang  garlands  near  them  so  much  the  better. 
You  must  certainly  present  the  Braut  with  a  bouquet  at 
some  stage  of  the  proceedings,  and  you  will  give  pleasure 
if  you  can  manufacture  one  or  two  mottoes  in  green 
stuff  and  put  them  in  conspicuous  places.  For  instance, 
I  knew  of  a  girl  who  got  engaged  away  from  home. 
Do  you  suppose  that  she  was  allowed  to  return  to  a 
bare  and  speechless  front  door  as  her  English  cousin 
would  ?  Nothing  of  the  kind.  The  whole  family  had 
set  to  work  to  twine  laurel  wreaths  and  garlands  in  her 
honour,  and  she  was  received  with  Wilkommen  du 
gliickseliges  Kind  done  in  ivy  leaves  by  her  grand- 
mother. It  was  considered  very  riihrend  and  innig. 
At  some  time  during  the  engagement  the  betrothed 
couple  are  sure  to  get  photographed  together,  and 
anyone  who  possesses  a  German  family  album  will 
bear  me  out  that  the  lady  is  nearly  always  standing, 
while  her  bearded  lover  is  sitting  down.  When  they 
are  both  standing  they  are  arm  in  arm  or  hand  in  hand. 
I  remember  a  collection  possessing  two  photographs  of 
a  married  daughter  with  her  husband.  One  had  been 
taken  just  before  the  wedding  in  the  orthodox  pose  ;  he 
in  an  easy  chair  and  she  standing  meekly  by  his  side : 
the  other  represented  them  a  year  after  marriage,  when 
Heaven  had  sent  them  twins.  They  were  both  standing 
then,  and  they  each  had  a  baby  in  a  Steckkissen  in 
their  arms. 

If  the  bridegroom  is  not  living  in  the  same  town 
with  his  bride  her  life  is  supposed  to  run  rather  quietly 
in  his  absence.  She  is  not  expected  to  dance  with 
other  men,  for  instance ;  but  rather  to  spend  her  time 
in  embroidering  his  monogram  on  every  conceivable 
object  he  might  use :  on  tobacco  pouches,  or  slippers, 


T» 


BRIDAL   GARMENTS 

I-KOM    A    PAINTING    AFTER    H.    BINDE 

In  some  districts  bunches  of  flowers  are  brought  by  friends  and  relations  of  ihe  bride  on  the  day   the  "Aussteu 
is  hung  on  the  line.     This  pretty  custom  expresses  the  wish  that  the  beautiful  and  graceful  shall  go  hana 
hand  with  the  useful  and  practical  in  the  married  state 


GIRLHOOD  89 

on  letter  cases,  on  braces,  on  photograph  frames,  on 
luggage  straps,  on  fine  pocket  handkerchiefs.  If  she 
is  expert  and  possesses  the  true  sentiment  she  will  em- 
broider things  for  him  with  her  hair.  In  these  degenerate 
days  she  does  not  make  her  own  outfit.  Formerly,  when 
a  German  girl  left  school  she  began  to  make  stores  of 
body  and  house  linen  for  future  years.  But  in  modern 
cities  the  Braut  gets  everything  at  one  of  the  big 
"  white  "  shops,  from  her  own  laces  and  muslins  to  the 
saucepan  holders  for  the  kitchen,  and  the  bread  bags 
,her  cook  will  hang  outside  the  flat  for  the  baker's  boy. 
In  Germany  it  is  the  bride,  or  rather  her  parents,  who 
furnish  the  house  and  provide  the  household  linen  ;  and 
the  linen  is  all  embroidered  with  her  initials.  This 
custom  extends  to  all  classes,  so  that  you  constantly 
hear  of  a  servant  who  is  saving  up  for  her  Aussteuer, 
that  is,  the  furniture  and  linen  of  a  house  as  well  as  her 
own  clothes.  If  you  ask  whether  she  is  engaged  you 
are  told  that  the  outfit  is  the  thing.  When  the  money 
for  that  is  there  it  is  easy  to  provide  the  bridegroom. 
In  higher  spheres  much  more  is  spent  on  a  bride's 
trousseau  than  in  England,  taking  class  for  class.  Some 
years  ago  I  had  occasion  to  help  in  the  choice  of  a 
trousseau  bought  in  Hamburg,  and  to  be  often  in  and 
out  of  a  great  "  white  ware  "  business  there.  I  cannot 
remember  how  many  outfits  were  on  view  during  those 
weeks,  but  they  were  all  much  alike.  What  some 
people  call  "  undies "  had  been  ordered  in  immense 
quantities,  sometimes  heavily  trimmed  with  Madeira 
work,  sometimes  with  a  plain  scollop  of  double  linen 
warranted  to  wash  and  wear  for  ever.  The  material 
was  also  invariably  of  a  kind  to  wear,  a  fine  linen  or 
a  closely  woven  English  longcloth.  How  any  one 
woman  could  want  some  six  dozen  "  nighties  "  (the  silly 
slang  sounds  especially  silly  when  I  think  of  those 


po  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

solid  highly  respectable  German  garments)  was  a 
question  no  one  seemed  to  ask.  The  bride's  father 
could  afford  six  dozen  ;  it  was  the  custom  to  have  six 
dozen  if  you  could  pay  for  them,  and  there  they  were. 
The  thin  cambric  garments  French  women  were  begin- 
ning to  wear  then  were  shown  to  you  and  tossed 
contemptuously  aside  as  only  fit  for  actresses.  But 
this  has  all  been  changed.  If  you  ask  for  "  undies " 
in  Berlin  to-day,  a  supercilious  shoplady  brings  you 
the  last  folly  in  gossamer,  decollete'e,  and  with  elbow 
sleeves ;  and  you  wonder  as  you  stare  at  it  what  a 
sane  portly  German  housewife  makes  of  such  a  gar- 
ment. In  this,  as  in  other  things,  instead  of  abiding 
by  his  own  sensible  fashions,  the  German  is  imitating 
the  French  and  the  Americans ;  for  it  is  the  French 
and  the  Americans  who  have  taught  the  women 
of  other  nations  to  buy  clothes  so  fragile  and  so 
costly  that  they  are  only  fit  for  the  purse  of  a  Chicago 
packer. 

When  the  outfit  is  ready  and  the  wedding  day  near, 
the  bride  returns  all  the  entertainments  given  in  her 
honour  by  inviting  her  girl  friends  to  a  Bride-chocolate 
or  a  Bean-coffee.  This  festivity  is  like  a  Kaffee-Klatsch, 
or  what  we  should  call  an  afternoon  tea.  In  Germany, 
until  quite  lately,  chocolate  and  coffee  were  preferred  to 
tea,  and  the  guests  sat  round  a  dining-table  well  spread 
with  cakes.  At  a  Bean-coffee  the  cake  of  honour  had 
a  bean  in  it,  and  the  girl  who  got  the  bean  in  her  slice 
would  be  Braut  before  the  year  was  out.  Another 
entertainment  that  takes  place  immediately  before  the 
marriage  is  given  by  the  bride's  best  friend,  who  invites 
several  other  girls  to  help  her  weave  the  bridal  wreath 
of  myrtle.  The  bride  does  not  help  with  it.  She 
appears  with  the  bridegroom  later  in  the  afternoon 
when  the  wreath  is  ready.  It  is  presented  to  her  with 


GIRLHOOD  91 

great  ceremony  on  a  cushion,  and  as  they  bring  it  the 
girls  sing  the  well-known  song  from  the  Freischiltz — 

"Wir  winden  dir  den  Jungfernkranz 
Mit  veilchenblauer  Seide ; 
Wir  fuhren  dich  zu  Spiel  und  Tanz 
Zu  Gliick  und  Liebesfreude  ! 

Lavendel,  Myrt'  und  Thymian 

Das  wachst  in  meinen  Garten ; 

Wie  lang  bleibt  doch  der  Freiersmann? 

Ich  kann  es  kaum  erwarten. 

Sie  hat  gesponnen  sieben  Jahr 
Den  goldnen  Flachs  am  Rocken  ; 
Die  Schleier  sind  wie  Spinnweb  klar, 
Und  griin  der  Kranz  der  Locken. 

Und  als  der  schmucke  Freier  kam, 
War'n  sieben  Jahr  verronnen  : 
Und  weil  sie  der  Herzliebste  nahm 
Hat  sie  den  Kranz  gewonnen." 

The  bridegroom  receives  a  buttonhole,  but  no  one 
sings  him  a  song.  In  the  opera  he  is  not  on  the  stage 
during  the  bridesmaids'  chorus.  I  have  not  been  able 
to  find  out  whether  the  quaint  pretty  verses  are  by 
Friedrich  Kind,  who  founded  the  libretto  of  the  opera 
on  a  story  by  August  Apel,  or  whether  he  borrowed 
them  from  an  older  source.  German  brides  wore 
myrtle  and  their  friends  wove  a  wedding  wreath  for 
them  long  before  1820,  when  Der  Freischiitz  appeared. 


CHAPTER   X 
MARRIAGES 

E  was  a  pompous,  stiff-jointed  man,"  said  my 
friends,  "an  official  in  a  small  town,  who 
would  go  to  the  stake  rather  than  break  the  letter  of 
the  law.  But  when  he  came  to  Berlin  to  attend  a 
niece's  marriage  he  thought  he  would  have  some  fun. 
He  arrived  late  on  Polterabend,  and  he  brought  with 
him  an  enormous  earthenware  crock.  Instead  of  ring- 
ing he  hurled  the  crock  against  the  outside  door  of  the 
flat,  so  that  it  smashed  to  atoms  with  a  noise  like 
thunder.  The  inhabitants  of  that  flat  came  forth  like 
a  swarm  of  bees,  but  they  were  not  laughing  at  the  fun, 
because  it  was  not  their  Polterabend."  He  had  broken 
crockery  on  the  wrong  floor. 

In  cities  this  ancient  German  custom  of  breaking 
crockery  at  the  bride's  door  on  Polterabend  (the  night 
before  the  wedding)  has  died  out,  but  it  has  not  long 
been  dead.  I  have  talked  with  people  who  remembered 
it  in  full  force  when  they  were  young.  I  believe  that 
the  idea  was  to  appease  the  Poltergeist,  who  would 
otherwise  vex  and  disturb  the  young  couple.  My 
dictionary,  the  one  that  has  2412  pages,  says  that  a 
Poltergeist  is  a  "  racketing  spectre,"  probably  what  we 
who  are  not  dictionary  makers  would  call  a  hobgoblin. 
In  Brands'  Antiquities  I  find  reference  to  this  old 
custom  at  the  marriage  of  a  Duke  of  York  in  Germany, 
when  great  quantities  of  glass  and  china  were  smashed 
at  the  palace  doors  the  night  before  the  wedding. 

93 


MARRIAGES  93 

Polterabend  is  still  celebrated  by  Germans,  although 
they  no  longer  consider  it  polite  to  smash  crockery. 
There  is  always  a  large  entertainment,  sometimes  at 
the  bride's  house,  sometimes  at  the  house  of  a  near 
relative ;  there  are  theatricals  with  personal  allusions,  or 
recitations  of  home-made  topical  poetry,  some  good 
music,  and  the  inevitable  evergreens  woven  into  senti- 
ments of  encouragement  and  congratulation.  The  bride's 
presents  are  set  out  much  as  they  are  in  England,  and 
perhaps  class  for  class  more  valuable  presents  are  given 
in  Germany  than  in  England.  Electro-plate,  for  instance, 
Was  considered  impossible  a  few  years  ago.  A 
wedding  present,  if  it  was  silver  at  all,  must  he  real 
silver.  But  it  is  not  so  much  the  custom  as  with  us  to 
give  presents  of  money. 

The  civil  marriage  takes  place  either  the  day  before 
or  early  on  the  same  day  as  the  religious  ceremony. 
The  bride  used  to  wear  black  silk,  and  still  wears  a 
dark  plain  costume  for  this  official  function.  Her 
parents  go  with  her  and  the  necessary  witnesses.  The 
religious  ceremony  often  used  to  take  place  in  the 
house,  but  that  is  no  longer  customary.  The  anonymous 
author  of  German  Home  Life,  a  book  published  and 
a  good  deal  read  in  1879,  says  that  marriage  is  a 
troublesome  and  expensive  ceremony  in  Germany,  and 
that  this  accounts  for  the  large  number  of  illegitimate 
children.  Mr.  O.  Eltzbacher,  the  author  of  Modern 
Germany  published  in  1905,  confirms  what  was  said 
in  1877  as  to  the  number  of  illegitimate  children  born 
in  Germany  and  Austria,  for  he  says  that  in  Germany 
itself  they  are  9  per  cent.,  while  in  those  districts  of 
Austria  where  the  Germans  form  about  nine-tenths  of 
the  population,  from  20  per  cent,  to  40  per  cent,  of  the 
children  are  born  out  of  wedlock.  In  France  statistics 
give  9  per  cent,  in  Scotland  7.4  per  cent.,  and  in 


94  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

England    and    Wales    4.2   per  cent.     Nevertheless   in 
modern  Germany  children  are  not  illegitimate  because 
their  parents  are  too  poor  to  pay  their  marriage  fees. 
The  civil  marriage  is  obligatory  everywhere,  and  costs 
nothing.      The   religious  ceremony  need  cost  nothing 
at    all.      In    the    porch    of   every    church    in    Prussia 
there     is     a    notice    stating    on     which     days     Freie 
Trauungen  are  conducted.     Several  couples  are  married 
at  the  same  time,  but  they  have  the  full  liturgy  and 
the    marriage    sermon.     A  small    charge  is  made  for 
the  organist  and  for  the  decoration  of  the  church.     A 
friend  whose  husband  has  a  large  poor  parish  in  Berlin 
tells    me    that    the    Social    Democrats    object    to    the 
religious  ceremony,  and  will  stand  guard   outside  the 
house  on  the  day  of  the  civil  marriage,  to  make  sure 
that  the  newly  made  husband  and  wife  do  not  leave 
together  to  go  to  church.     Sometimes  an  artisan  will 
wait    a    fortnight    after  the    civil  ceremony  before  he 
ventures  to  have  the  religious  one.     Every  artisan  in 
Berlin    has    to     belong    to     the     Sozialdemokratischer 
Verbund,  because  if  he    did    not  his  fellow-workmen 
would  destroy  his  tools  and  ruin  his  chances  of  work. 
Apparently  they  interfere  with  his  private  affairs  as  well. 
The    marriage    service    is    not    to    be  found  in  the 
prayer-book  Germans  take  to  church,  but  I  have  both 
read  it  and  listened  to  it.     The  vows  made  are  much 
the  same  as  here ;  but  in  Germany  great  importance  is 
attached  to  the  homily  or  marriage  sermon.     This  is 
often  long  and  heavy.      I  have  heard  the  pastor  preach 
to  the  young  couple  for  nearly  half  an  hour  about  their 
duties,  and  especially  about  the  wife's  duty  of  submission 
and  obedience.     His  victims  were  kept  standing  before 
him  the  whole  time,  and  the  poor  little  bride  was  shak- 
ing from  head  to  foot  with  nervousness  and  excitement 
In  some  cities  the  carriage  used  by  a  well-to-do  bride 


MARRIAGES  95 

and  bridegroom  is  as  big  as  a  royal  coach,  and  up- 
holstered with  white  satin,  and  on  the  wedding  day 
decorated  inside  and  out  with  garlands  of  flowers. 
The  bridegroom  fetches  his  bride  in  this  coach,  and 
enters  the  church  with  her.  When  a  pretty  popular 
girl  gets  married  all  her  admirers  send  flowers  to  the 
church  to  decorate  it.  The  bride  and  bridgroom 
exchange  rings,  for  in  Germany  men  as  well  as  women 
wear  a  plain  gold  wedding  ring,  and  it  is  always  worn 
on  the  right  hand.  The  bridegroom  and  all  the  male 
guests  wear  evening  dress  and  silk  hats.  The  women 
wear  evening  clothes  too,  and  no  hats.  The  bride 
wears  the  conventional  white  silk  or  satin  and  a  white 
veil,  but  her  wreath  must  be  partly  of  myrtle,  for  in 
Germany  myrtle  is  the  bride's  emblem. 

After  the  wedding  dinner  the  bride  slips  away 
unnoticed  and  changes  her  gown,  and  is  presently 
joined  by  the  bridegroom,  but  not  by  any  of  the  guests. 
No  rice  and  no  old  slippers  are  thrown  in  Germany, 
and  no  crowd  of  friends  assembles  to  see  the  young 
pair  start.  The  bride  bids  her  parents  farewell,  and  slips 
away  with  her  husband  unseen  and  unattended.  After 
the  wedding  dinner  there  is  often  dancing  and  music. 

A  hundred  years  ago  wedding  festivities  lasted  for 
many  days  after  the  wedding,  and  the  bride  and  bride- 
groom did  not  go  till  they  were  over.  When  the 
celebrated  and  much  married  Caroline  Schlegel  married 
her  first  husband,  George  Bohmer,  in  1 784,  the  ceremony 
took  place  at  her  own  home  in  Gottingen,  where  her 
father  was  a  well-known  professor.  "  It  would  be  un- 
natural if  a  young  wife  did  not  begin  with  an  account 
of  her  wedding  day,"  she  says  in  one  of  her  letters. 
"  Mine  was  delightful  enough.  Bohmer  breakfasted 
with  me,  and  the  morning  hours  passed  gaily,  and  yet 
with  quietness.  There  was  no  trepidation — only  an 


96  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

intercourse  of  souls.  My  brother  came.  We  were 
together  till  four,  and  when  he  left  us  he  gave  us  his 
blessing  with  tears.  .  .  .  Lotte  and  Friederike  wove 
the  bridal  wreath.  .  .  .  Then  I  had  a  talk  with  my 
father  and  dressed  myself.  .  .  .  Meanwhile  those 
dear  Meiners  sent  me  a  note,  with  which  were  some 
garters  they  had  embroidered  themselves.  Several  of 
my  friends  wrote  to  me,  and  last  of  all  I  got  a  silhouette, 
painted  on  glass,  of  Lotte  and  Friederike  weaving  my 
bridal  wreath.  When  I  was  dressed  I  was  a  pretty 
bride.  The  room  was  charmingly  decorated  by  my 
mother.  Soon  after  four  o'clock  Bbhmer  arrived,  and 
the  guests,  thirty-eight  in  number.  Thank  Heaven, 
there  were  no  old  uncles  and  aunts,  so  the  company 
was  of  a  more  bearable  type  than  is  usual  on  such 
occasions.  I  stood  there  surrounded  by  my  girl  friends, 
and  my  most  vivid  thought  was  of  what  my  condition 
would  be  if  I  did  not  love  the  man  before  me.  My 
father,  who  was  still  far  from  well,  led  me  to  the  clergy- 
man, and  I  saw  myself  for  life  at  Bohmer's  side  and 
yet  did  not  tremble.  During  the  ceremony  I  did  not 
cry.  But  after  it  was  over  and  Bohmer  took  me  in 
his  arms  with  every  expression  of  the  deepest  love, 
while  parents,  brothers,  sisters,  and  friends  greeted  me 
with  kind  wishes  as  never  a  bride  was  greeted  before, 
my  brother  being  quite  overwhelmed — then  my  heart 
melted  and  overflowed  out  of  sheer  happiness." 

A  week  later  Caroline  and  her  husband  are  still  at 
Gottingen,  and  still  celebrating  their  marriage.  At  one 
house,  under  pretence  of  the  heat,  the  bride  was  led 
into  the  garden,  and  beheld  there  an  illuminated  motto: 
"  Happy  the  man  who  has  a  virtuous  wife :  his  life  will 
be  doubly  long."  Another  friend  arrayed  her  son  as 
Hymen,  and  taught  him  to  strew  flowers  in  Caroline's 
path,  leading  her  thus  to  an  arbour  where  there  was  a 


MARRIAGES  97 

throne  of  moss  and  flowers,  with  high  steps  ascending 
to  it,  a  canopy  and  a  triumphal  arch.  Concealed 
behind  a  bush  were  musicians,  who  sang  an  appropriate 
song,  while  the  bride  and  bridegroom  mounted  the 
throne  and  sank  in  each  other's  arms  before  a  crowd 
of  sympathising  and  tearful  spectators. 

This  took  place  more  than  a  hundred  and  twenty 
years  ago,  but  I  have  in  my  possession  what  I  can  only 
describe  as  the  "  literature "  of  a  marriage  celebrated 
three  years  ago  between  a  North  and  a  South  German, 
both  belonging  to  commercial  families  of  old  standing ; 
and  it  supplies  me,  if  I  needed  it,  with  documentary 
evidence  that  Germans  enjoy  now  what  they  enjoyed 
then.  The  marriage  took  place  in  winter  and  from  a 
flat,  so  that  the  bride's  friends  could  not  build  grottoes 
or  hide  musicians  behind  a  bush ;  but  for  weeks  before 
both  sides  of  the  family  must  have  been  busy  composing 
the  poems  sung  at  the  wedding  feast,  the  music  that 
accompanied  them,  and  the  elaborate  humorous  verses 
containing  allusions  to  the  past  history  of  the  bride  and 
bridegroom.  To  begin  with,  there  is  a  dainty  book  of 
picture  postcards,  the  first  one  giving  portraits  of  a  very 
handsome  and  dignified  bridegroom  with  his  dainty 
bride.  Then  there  is  a  view  of  Dresden  where  the 
bridegroom  was  born,  another  of  the  Rhenish  town  in 
which  he  found  his  bride,  and  one  of  Berlin  where  she 
used  to  stay  with  a  married  sister  and  deal  "  baskets  " 
right  and  left  to  would-be  admirers.  In  Germany,  when 
a  girl  refuses  a  man  she  is  said  to  give  him  a  "  basket," 
and  a  favourite  old  figure  in  the  cotillon  used  to  put 
one  in  a  girl's  hands  and  then  present  two  men  to  her. 
She  danced  with  the  one  she  liked  best,  and  the  rejected 
man  had  to  dance  round  after  them  with  the  basket. 

Besides  the  book  of  postcards,  each  guest  at  this 
wedding  was  presented  with  printed  copies  of  the 
7 


98  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

Tafel-Lieder  composed  by  members  of  the  family. 
One  of  these  has  eight  verses  and  each  verse  has  eight 
lines.  It  relates  little  events  in  the  life  of  the  bridegroom 
from  babyhood  onwards.  You  learn  that  he  was  a  clever 
child,  that  he  lived  at  home  with  his  mother  instead  of 
going  abroad  to  learn  his  work,  that  when  he  was  young 
he  ardently  desired  to  go  on  the  stage,  that  he  is  a  fine 
gymnast  and  musician,  but  that  he  needs  a  wife  because 
he  is  a  dreamy  person  capable  of  putting  on  odd  boots. 
Another  Taf el-Lied  describes  the  courtship  step  by  step, 
and  even  the  assistance  given  by  the  poet's  wife  to  bring 
the  romance  to  its  present  happy  conclusion. 

"At  last  Frau  Sophie  stirred  in  the  affair, 
Her  eyes  had  pierced  to  his  heart's  desire, 
With  fine  diplomacy  she  coaxed  Miss  Clare 
To  own  her  maiden  heart  was  set  on  fire. 
On  all  the  words  and  sighs  there  follow  deeds: 
He  comes,  he  woos  her,  and  at  last  succeeds." 

The  songs  are  not  all  sentiment.  They  are  jocular, 
and  contain  puns  and  play  upon  names.  Three  out 
of  the  five  end  with  an  invitation  to  everyone  to  raise 
their  glasses  with  a  Hoch  to  the  married  pair.  This  is 
done  over  and  over  again  at  German  weddings,  and  as 
all  the  guests  want  to  clink  glasses  with  the  bride  and 
bridegroom,  there  is  a  good  deal  of  movement  as  well 
as  noise.  Besides  the  Tafel-Lieder^  each  of  which  made 
a  separate  booklet  with  its  own  dedication  and  illus- 
tration, every  guest  received  an  elaborate  book  of 
samples :  samples  of  the  various  straws  used  that 
summer  for  ladies'  hats.  The  bridegroom's  family  had 
manufactured  hats  for  many  generations ;  they  were 
wealthy,  highly  considered  people,  and  extremely  proud 
of  their  position  in  their  own  industry.  I  am  sure  that 
when  an  Englishman  in  the  same  trade  and  of  the  same 
standing  gets  married,  the  last  thing  that  would  be 


MARRIAGES  99 

mentioned  at  his  wedding  would  be  hats.  It  would  be 
considered  in  the  highest  degree  indecorous.  But  the 
German  is  still  guileless  enough  to  be  satisfied  with  his 
station  in  life  when  it  is  sufficiently  honourable  and 
prosperous,  and  for  this  wedding  two  little  nieces  had 
prepared  this  card  of  samples  and  composed  a  rhyme 
for  each  different  colour — 

"Wie  1st  doch  der  Onkel  hoch  begluckt 
Das  Tantchen  heute  der  'Brautkranz'  schmiickt" 

went  with  "  myrtle  green." 

"Liebe  Gaste,  mit  Genuss, 
Wollet  alle  Euch  erheben— 
Hoch  das  Brautpaar — 
Es  soil  leben!" 

went  with  the  "  champagne  "  straw  at  the  end  ;  and  one 
accompanying  the  "  silver  "  straw  contained  an  allusion 
to  the  "  silver  "  wedding  twenty-five  years  hence,  when 
the  bride's  golden  hair  would  be  silver-grey. 

Here  is  the  menu,  mostly  in  French,  to  which  all  the 
Tafel-Lieder  were  sung,  and  all  the  toasts  drunk  and 
congratulatory  speeches  made.  You  will  observe  that 
it  is  none  of  your  light  cup,  cake,  and  ice  entertainments 
that  you  have  substituted  for  the  solid  old  wedding 
breakfast  in  this  country. 

HOCHZEITS-TAFEL. 


Caviar-  Schnitten 
Potage  Douglas 
Saumon-Sce  Bernaise 
Pommes  Naturelles 
Selle  de  Chevreuil 

k  la  Chipolata 
Ris  de  Veau  en  demi  Deuil 
Poularde 

Salade  &  Compote 
Asperges  en  Branches 

Sce  Mousseline 
Glace  Napolitaine 


Patisserie 
Fruits  &  Dessert 
Fromage 

Scharzberger  Mousseux 
ipooer  Caseler 
i896er  St.  Emilion 


Schloss  Johannisberg 


Moet  et  Chandon 
White  Star 


100  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

And  that  no  guest  should  depart  hungry — 

Kaltes  Abendbrot  |  Bier 

Germans  celebrate  both  silver  and  golden  weddings 
with  as  much  ceremony  and  rejoicing  as  the  first 
wedding.  The  husband  and  wife  receive  presents  from 
all  their  friends,  and  entertain  them  according  to  the 
best  of  their  circumstances.  Children  will  travel  across 
the  world  and  bring  grandchildren  with  them  to  one  of 
these  anniversaries,  and  they  are  of  course  a  great 
occasion  for  the  topical  poetry,  theatricals,  and  tableaux 
that  Germans  enjoy.  If  the  grandmother  by  good 
luck  has  saved  a  gown  she  wore  as  a  girl,  and 
the  grandchild  can  put  it  on  and  act  some  little 
episode  from  the  old  lady's  youth,  everyone  will  ap- 
plaud and  enjoy  and  be  stirred  to  smiles  and  tears. 
There  is  as  much  feasting  as  at  a  youthful  wedding, 
and  perhaps  more  elaborate  performances.  Silver- 
grey  is  considered  the  proper  thing  for  the  silver 
bride  to  wear. 

It  seems  like  a  want  of  sentiment  to  speak  of  divorce 
in  the  same  breath  with  weddings ;  but  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  divorce  is  commoner  in  Germany  than  in  England, 
and  more  easily  obtained.  Imprisonment  for  felony  is 
sufficient  reason,  and  unfaithfulness  without  cruelty, 
insanity  that  has  lasted  three  years,  desertion,  ill  treat- 
ment or  any  attempt  on  the  other's  life.  You  hear 
divorce  spoken  of  lightly  by  people  whose  counterparts 
in  England  would  be  shocked  by  it;  people,  I  mean, 
of  blameless  sequestered  lives  and  rigid  moral  views. 
Some  saintly  ladies,  who  I  am  sure  have  never  harboured 
a  light  thought  or  spent  a  frivolous  hour,  told  me  of  a 
cousin  who  played  whist  every  evening  with  her  present 
husband  and  his  predecessor.  My  friends  seemed  to 
think  the  situation  amusing,  but  not  in  any  way  to  be 


MARRIAGES  101 

condemned.  At  the  same  time,  I  have  heard  Germans 
quote  the  saying — "  Geschiedene  Leute  scheiden  fort 
und  fort?  and  object  strongly  to  associate  with  anyone, 
however  innocent,  who  had  been  connected  with  a 
matrimonial  scandal. 

A  woman  remains  in  possession  of  her  own  money 
after  marriage  even  without  marriage  settlements;  but 
the  husband  has  certain  rights  of  use  and  investment. 
Her  clothes,  jewels,  and  tools  are  her  own,  and  the 
wages  she  earns  by  her  own  work.  A  man's  creditors 
cannot  seize  either  these  or  her  fortune  to  pay  his  debts. 
Both  in  Germany  and  England  the  wife  must  live  in 
the  house  and  place  chosen  by  the  husband,  but  in 
Germany  she  need  not  follow  him  to  unwirtlichen 
countries  against  her  will.  He  can  insist  on  her  doing 
the  housework  and  helping  him  in  his  business  when 
he  has  no  means  to  pay  substitutes ;  but  she  can  insist 
on  being  maintained  in  a  style  proper  to  their  station 
in  life.  He  is  responsible  for  her  business  debts  if  he 
has  consented  to  her  undertakings ;  but  he  can  forbid 
her  to  carry  on  a  business  if  he  prefers  that  she  should 
be  supported  by  him  and  give  her  time  and  strength 
to  the  administration  of  their  home.  When  they  are 
legally  separated  he  must  make  her  an  allowance,  but 
it  need  only  be  enough  for  the  bare  necessaries  of  life 
if  the  separation  is  due  to  her  misconduct.  The  father 
and  mother  have  joint  control  of  the  children,  but  during 
the  father's  lifetime  his  rule  is  paramount.  When  he 
is  dead  or  incapacitated  parental  authority  remains  in 
the  mother's  hands.  It  is  her  right  and  duty  to  care 
for  the  child's  person,  to  decide  where  it  shall  live,  and 
to  superintend  its  education.  She  can  claim  it  legally 
from  people  who  desire  to  keep  it  from  her.  A  child 
born  in  wedlock  is  legitimate  unless  the  husband  can 
prove  otherwise,  and  he  must  establish  proof  within  a 


102  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

1 ,  •     "  i      •          •  '  .  ." 

year  of  the   birth  coming  to  his  knowledge.     But    a 

woman  is  not  allowed  to  prove  that  a  child  born  in 
wedlock  is  illegitimate. 

If  a  man  dies  intestate  and  leaves  children  or  grand- 
children, his  widow  inherits  a  fourth  of  his  property; 
if  he  only  has  more  distant  relatives,  half;  if  he  has 
none,  the  whole.  A  man  cannot  cut  his  wife  off  with 
a  shilling.  He  must  leave  her  at  least  half  of  what 
would  come  to  her  if  he  died  intestate.  All  the  laws 
relating  to  husband  and  wife  are  to  be  found  in  the 
Biirgerliches  Gesetzbuch^  which  can  be  bought  for  a 
mark.  As  far  as  the  non-legal  intelligence  can  grasp 
them,  they  seem  according  to  our  times  to  be  just  to 
women,  except  when  they  give  the  use  of  her  income 
to  the  husband.  This  is  a  big  exception,  however.  I 
remember  hearing  a  German  say  that  his  sister's 
quarterly  allowance,  which  happened  to  be  a  large  one, 
was  always  sent  to  her  husband,  as  it  was  right  and 
proper  that  important  sums  of  money  should  be  in  the 
man's  hands  and  under  his  control.  This  undoubtedly 
is  the  general  German  view.  After  the  moonshine,  the 
nightingales,  the  feasting,  the  toasts,  and  the  family 
poetry  come  the  realities  of  life:  and  the  realities  in 
German  make  the  man  the  predominant  partner. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  HOUSEHOLDER 

RENTS  are  high  in  Germany.  At  least,  the 
Germans  say  so,  and  so  do  the  people  whose 
books  about  Germany  are  crammed  with  soul-satisfying 
statistics  and  elaborate  calculations.  Over-crowding, 
too,  is  said  to  be  worse  in  Germany  than  in  English 
cities.  But  I  have  always  seen  the  rent  and  the 
crowding  judged  by  the  number  of  rooms  and  not  by 
their  size.  This  is  really  misleading,  because  you  could 
put  the  whole  of  a  small  London  flat  into  many  a 
German  middle-class  dining-room  or  Wohnzimmer. 
You  could  bring  up  a  family  in  a  single  room  I  once 
had  for  a  whole  summer  in  Thiiringen  for  5s.  a  week. 
It  was  as  big  as  a  church,  and  most  light  and  airy. 
One  camped  in  bits  of  it.  I  think  rent  for  rent  rooms 
in  Germany  are  quite  twice  as  large  as  in  London.  In 
Berlin,  where  rent  is  considered  wickedly  high,  you  can 
get  a  flat  in  a  good  quarter  for  £80,  and  for  that  sum 
you  will  have  four  large  rooms,  three  smaller  ones,  a 
good  kitchen,  an  attic  that  serves  as  a  lumber-room,  and 
a  share  in  a  laundry  at  the  top  of  the  house.  There  will 
even  be  a  bathroom  with  a  trickle  of  cold  water,  but  it 
is  only  in  the  very  newest  and  most  expensive  German 
flats  that  you  find  hot  and  cold  water  laid  on.  Your 
drawing  and  dining-rooms  will  be  spacious,  and  one  of 

them  is  almost  sure  to  have  a  balcony  looking  on  the 

103 


104  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

street  and  the  pleasant  avenue  of  trees  with  which  it 
is  planted.  For  this  rent  you  must  either  make  your- 
self happy  on  the  third  or  fourth  floor  in  a  house 
without  a  lift,  or  you  must  find  one  of  the  delightful 
"  garden  "  dwellings  behind  the  Hof\  but  you  will  have 
a  better  home  for  your  money  than  you  could  get  in 
a  decent  part  of  London.  In  fact,  it  comes  to  this,  in 
spite  of  all  the  statistics  in  favour  of  London.  If  you 
can  only  spend  £80  on  your  rent  you  can  live  in  a 
good  quarter  of  Berlin,  near  enough  to  the  Tiergarten, 
close  to  the  Zoological  Gardens,  and  within  a  tram-ride 
of  the  delightful  woods  at  Halensee.  In  London  you 
can  get  a  small  house  for  £80,  but  it  will  either  be  in 
an  unattractive  quarter  or  in  a  suburb.  A  flat,  wherever 
it  is,  must  always  seem  a  dwelling  place  rather  than  a 
home,  but  the  Germans  have  elected  to  live  in  flats 
and  accept  their  disadvantages.  In  and  around  all  the 
great  cities  there  are  villas,  but  their  number  hardly 
counts  in  comparison  with  the  masses  of  tall  white 
houses,  six  storeys  high  for  the  most  part,  and  holding 
within  their  walls  all  degrees  of  wealth  and  poverty. 
The  German  villa  is  florid,  and  likes  blue  glass  balls  and 
artificial  fountains  in  its  garden.  It  is  often  a  villa  in 
appearance  and  several  flats  in  reality.  Its  most 
pleasant  feature  is  the  garden-room  or  big  verandah, 
where  in  summer  all  meals  are  served.  Outside  Ham- 
burg, on  the  banks  of  the  Elbe,  the  merchant  princes  of 
the  city  have  built  themselves  palaces  surrounded  by 
splendid  park-like  gardens.  But  Hamburg,  though  it 
does  not  love  the  English,  is  always  accused  by  the  rest 
of  Germany  of  being  English.  It  certainly  has  beauti- 
ful gardens.  So  have  other  German  cities  in  some 
instances,  but  well  kept  gardens  are  not  the  matter  of 
course  in  Germany  that  they  are  here.  You  see  more 
bare  and  artificial  ones  and  more  neglected  overgrown 


THE  HOUSEHOLDER  105 

ones  in  an  afternoon's  walk  than  you  do  all  the  year 
round  in  England.  But  I  wish  we  could  follow  the 
German  fashion  of  planting  all  our  streets  with  double 
avenues  of  healthy  trees.  Berlin  in  spring  seems  to  be 
set  in  a  wood ;  it  is  so  fresh  and  green.  The  flowering 
shrubs,  on  the  other  hand,  are  not  to  be  compared  with 
ours.  Everyone  rushes  to  see  a  few  lilac  bushes,  and 
Gueldres  roses  trimmed  to  a  stiff  snowball  of  flowers,  and 
everyone  says  Wie  Herrlich  !  but  you  miss  the  profu- 
sion of  lilac,  hawthorn,  and  laburnum  that  runs  riot  all 
about  London  in  every  residential  road  and  every  garden. 
Above  all,  you  miss  the  English  lawns.  In  Berlin 
wherever  grass  is  grown  it  looks  either  thin  or  coarse. 
The  majority  of  Germans  do  not  dream  of  wanting  a 
garden.  They  are  content  with  a  few  palms  in  their 
sitting-room  or  window  boxes  on  their  balcony.  They 
are  proud  of  their  window-gardening  in  Berlin,  but  I 
think  London  windows  in  June  are  gayer  and  more 
flowery.  The  palms  kept  in  German  rooms  attain  to 
a  great  size  and  number,  and  a  palm  is  a  favourite 
present.  Nursery  gardeners  undertake  the  troublesome 
business  of  repotting  them  every  spring,  so  the  owners 
have  nothing  to  do  but  water  them  and  keep  them  from 
draughts.  There  are  usually  so  many  windows  in  a 
German  sitting-room  that  those  near  the  plants  need 
never  be  opened  in  winter  ;  and  even  when  the  tempera- 
ture sinks  several  degrees  below  zero  outside,  the  air  of 
the  flat  is  kept  artificially  warm,  so  warm  that  English 
folk  gasp  and  flag  in  it.  At  the  first  sign  of  winter 
the  outside  windows,  removed  for  the  summer,  are 
brought  back  again.  Our  windows  are  unknown  on  the 
continent,  and  disliked  by  continentals  who  see  them 
here.  They  call  them  guillotine  windows,  and  consider 
them  dangerous.  Theirs  all  open  like  doors,  so  that 
you  have  four  doors  to  each  window,  and  until  you  get 


io6  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

used  to  them  you  find  they  make  a  pretty  clatter 
whenever  you  set  them  wide.  But  in  winter  they  are 
only  opened  for  a  few  minutes  every  morning  when  the 
room  is  "  aired."  It  is  considered  extravagant  to  open 
them  at  other  times,  because  the  heat  would  escape  and 
more  fuel  would  be  required.  I  suppose  everyone  in 
England  understands  that  our  open  fireplaces  are 
almost  unknown  in  Germany.  They  have  enclosed 
stoves  of  iron  or  porcelain  that  make  little  work  or  dirt 
and  give  no  pleasure.  There  is  no  gathering  round 
the  hearth.  You  sit  about  the  room  as  you  would  in 
summer,  for  it  is  evenly  heated.  All  the  beauty  and 
poetry  of  fire  are  wanting ;  you  have  nothing  but  an 
atmosphere  that  will  be  comfortable  or  asphyxiating, 
according  to  the  taste  of  your  hosts.  Years  ago  in 
South  Germany  you  burnt  nothing  but  logs  of  wood 
in  the  old-fashioned  iron  stoves,  and  there  was  some 
faint  pleasure  in  listening  to  their  crackle.  You  could 
just  see  the  flames  too,  if  you  stooped  low  enough  and 
opened  the  little  stove  door.  But  the  wood  burnt  so 
quickly  that  it  was  most  difficult  to  keep  a  big  room 
warm.  Nowadays  you  always  find  the  porcelain 
stove  that  Mark  Twain  says  looks  like  the  family 
monument.  In  some  of  these  coal  is  burnt,  or  a 
mixture  of  coal  and  peat.  Some  burn  anthracite,  and 
are  considered  economical.  A  Filllofen  of  this  kind 
is  kept  burning  night  and  day  during  the  worst  of  the 
winter.  It  requires  attention  two  or  three  times  in 
twenty-four  hours;  it  is  easily  regulated,  and  if  the 
communicating  doors  are  left  open  it  warms  two  or 
three  rooms.  A  friend  who  has  a  large  flat  in  Berlin 
told  me  that  there  was  one  of  these  stoves  in  her 
husband's  study,  and  that  her  drawing-room  which 
opens  out  of  it,  and  which  they  constantly  use,  had  only 
had  a  fire  in  it  five  times  last  winter.  I  find  on  look- 


THE  HOUSEHOLDER  107 

ing  at  this  friend's  budget  that  she  spends  £16  a  year 
on  turf  and  other  fuel,  and  this  seems  high  for  a  flat 
where  so  few  fires  were  lighted.  But  fuel  is  dear  in 
German  towns.  Briquettes  are  largely  used  in  cities, 
small  slabs  of  condensed  coal  that  cost  one  pfennig  each. 
It  takes  about  twenty-four  slabs  to  keep  a  stove  in 
during  the  day.  The  great  advantage  of  the  Fullofen 
over  the  ordinary  stove  is  that  it  keeps  in  all  night. 
There  are  dangerous  variations  of  temperature  in  a 
German  flat  that  is  kept  as  hot  as  an  oven  all  day,  and 
allowed  to  sink  below  zero  during  the  night.  But  you 
hear  complaints  on  all  sides  in  Germany,  both  of  incon- 
siderate English  people  who  waste  fuel  by  opening 
windows  in  cold  weather ;  and  of  the  sufferings  endured 
by  Germans  who  have  been  in  England  in  winter.  They 
do  not  like  our  open  fireplaces  at  all,  because  they  say 
they  wish  to  be  warm  all  over  and  not  in  bits.  "  In 
England,"  they  tell  you  solemnly,  "  you  can  be  warm 
either  in  front  or  at  the  back  ;  but  you  cannot  be  warm 
on  both  sides  as  we  are  here.  Besides,  your  fireplaces 
make  dirt  and  work  and  are  extravagant.  They 
would  not  suit  us."  In  fact,  they  imply  that  for  the 
French  and  the  English  they  are  well  enough,  but  not 
for  the  salt  of  the  earth.  The  German  kitchen  stoves 
are  certainly  more  practical  and  economical  than  ours, 
and  I  never  can  understand  why  we  do  not  fetch  a  few 
over  and  try  them.  They  are  entirely  enclosed,  and 
much  lower  than  ours.  The  Berlin  kitchener  has  one 
fire  that  is  lighted  for  a  short  time  to  roast  a  joint,  and 
another  using  less  fuel  that  heats  water  and  does  light 
cooking.  The  sweep,  who  is  bound  by  the  etiquette  of 
his  trade  to  wear  a  tall  hat  in  Germany,  does  not  come 
into  your  flat  at  all.  You  hear  him  shout  through  the 
courtyard  that  he  will  visit  the  house  next  day,  and  he 
works  from  the  garrets  and  cellars.  The  police  regulate 


io8  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

his  visits  as  they  regulate  everything  else  in  Germany. 
Chimneys  must  be  swept  every  six  weeks  in  summer, 
and  every  four  weeks  in  winter  in  Berlin.  Dustbins 
are  emptied  every  day,  and  in  some  towns  the  police 
make  most  troublesome  regulations  with  regard  to  them. 
The  householder  has  to  set  his  outside  to  be  emptied, 
and  the  police  insist  on  this  being  done  at  a  certain 
hour,  neither  earlier  nor  later,  so  that  if  your  servant 
happens  to  be  careless  or  unpunctual  you  will  be 
repeatedly  fined. 

Staircases  vary  greatly  according  to  the  date  and 
rent  of  the  house.  The  most  modern  houses  in 
Berlin  have  broad  front  staircases  with  thick  carpets, 
and  in  some  cases  seats  of  "  Nouveau  Art "  design  on 
the  landings.  In  such  houses  you  are  always  met  on 
the  threshold  by  printed  requests  to  wipe  your  feet 
and  shut  the  door  gently.  They  don't  tell  you  to 
do  as  you're  bid.  That  is  taken  for  granted,  or  the 
police  will  know  the  reason  why.  There  is  always 
an  uncarpeted  back  staircase  for  servants  and  trades- 
people, and  for  the  tenants  who  inhabit  the  poorer 
parts  of  the  building.  In  houses  where  all  the  tenants 
belong  to  the  poorer  classes,  you  find  notices  that  forbid 
children  to  play  in  the  Hof,  and  command  people  not 
to  loiter  or  to  make  any  noise  on  the  stairs.  Carpet- 
beating  and  shaking,  which  is  constantly  and  vigorously 
carried  on,  is  only  allowed  on  certain  days  of  the  week 
and  at  certain  hours.  When  there  is  a  house  porter 
he  is  not  as  important  and  conspicuous  as  the  French 
concierge.  In  my  experience  he  has  usually  gone  out 
and  thoughtfully  left  the  front  door  ajar.  He  is  not 
a  universal  institution  even  in  Berlin. 

Taxes  vary  in  different  parts  of  Germany.  In 
Saxony  a  man  spending  £$oo  a  year  pays  altogether 
£60  for  Income  tax,  Municipal  rates,  Water,  School, 


THE  HOUSEHOLDER  109 

and  Church  rates.  In  Berlin  the  Income  tax  is  not  an 
Imperial  (Reichs)  tax,  but  a  Landes  tax,  and  amounts 
to  £15  on  an  income  of  £500.  Smaller  incomes  pay 
less  and  larger  ones  more,  in  proportion  varying  from 
about  2  to  4  per  cent.  Besides  this  Staats  tax 
there  is  a  municipal  tax  of  exactly  the  same  amount 
in  Berlin  and  Charlottenberg.  But  there  are  towns 
in  Prussia  where  it  is  less ;  others,  mostly  in  the 
Western  Provinces,  where  it  is  more,  considerably 
more  in  some  cases.  The  water  rate  is  paid  by  the 
house  owners,  and  the  tenant  pays  it  in  his  rent.  There 
are  no  school  taxes.  The  church  tax  is  compul- 
sory on  members  of  the  Landeskirche.  When  a 
man  has  no  capital  his  income  tax  is  levied  on  his 
yearly  expenses ;  but  the  man  whose  income  is  derived 
from  capital  pays  a  higher  tax  than  the  man  who  has 
none.  The  German,  too,  pays  a  great  deal  to  the  State 
indirectly ;  for  nearly  everything  he  requires  is  taxed. 
But  the  three  things  he  loves  best,  tobacco,  beer,  and 
music,  he  gets  cheap — cheaper  than  he  can  in  this 
Free  Trade  country ;  so  he  pays  for  everything  else 
as  best  he  can,  and  tries  to  look  pleasant.  "  But  the 
burden  is  almost  more  than  we  can  bear,"  said  one 
thoughtful  German  to  me  when  I  told  him  how  greatly 
English  people  admired  their  municipal  enterprise,  and 
the  admirable  provision  made  in  Berlin  for  the  very 
poor. 

Last  time  I  went  to  Germany  I  actually  made 
the  acquaintance  of  one  German  who  did  not  smoke, 
and  on  various  occasions  I  was  in  the  society  of 
others  who  did  not  smoke  for  some  hours.  In  the 
Berlin  tramcars  smoking  is  strictly  forbidden,  but  I  did 
not  observe  that  this  rule  was  strictly  enforced.  In 
fact,  my  attention  was  drawn  to  it  one  day  by  rinding 
my  neighbour's  cigar  unpleasantly  strong.  One  cigar 


no  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

in  a  tramcar,  however,  is  nothing  at  all,  and  should  not 
be  mentioned.  It  is  when  a  railway  carriage  beauti- 
fully upholstered  with  crimson  velvet  holds  you,  six 
Germans,  and  one  Englishman,  for  eight  hours  on  a 
blazing  summer  day,  that  you  begin  to  wonder  whether, 
after  all,  you  do  mind  smoke.  To  be  sure,  you  might 
have  travelled  in  a  Nichtraucher  or  a  Damen-Coupe\ 
but  changes  are  a  nuisance  on  a  journey.  Besides, 
you  know  that  a  Damen-Coupt  is  always  crowded,  and 
that  the  moment  you  open  a  window  someone  will 
hold  a  handkerchief  tearfully  to  her  neck  and  say, 
"  Aber  ich  bitte  meine  Dame:  eszieht!"  and  all  the 
other  women  in  the  carriage  will  say  in  chorus,  "/#/ 
ja  I  es  zieht ! "  and  if  you  don't  shut  the  window 
instantly  the  conductor  will  be  summoned,  and  he  will 
give  the  case  against  you.  So  you  travel  all  day  long 
with  seven  cigars,  most  of  them  cheap  strong  ones,  that 
their  owners  smoke  very  slowly  and  replace  directly 
they  are  finished.  And  after  a  time  the  conversation 
turns  on  smoking,  and  your  neighbour  admits  that  he 
always  lights  his  first  cigar  when  he  gets  up  in  the 
morning  and  smokes  it  while  he  is  dressing.  His 
wife  dresses  in  the  same  room  and  does  not  like  it, 
but  ...  It  is  unnecessary  to  say  more.  Five  cigars 
out  of  six  are  in  sympathy  with  him,  while  you  amuse 
yourself  by  wondering  what  revenge  a  wife  could  take 
in  such  circumstances.  A  bottle  of  the  most  offensive 
scent  in  the  market  suggests  itself,  but  you  look  at 
your  neighbour's  profile,  and  see  that  he  is  the  kind 
of  man  to  pitch  scent  he  did  not  like  out  of  the 
window.  You  have  heard  of  one  German  husband 
who  did  this  when  his  wife  brought  home  perfumes 
that  did  not  please  him.  And  then  your  memory 
travels  back  and  back  along  the  years,  arriving  at  last 
at  the  picture  of  an  English  nursery,  in  the  household 


THE  HOUSEHOLDER  in 

where  a  German  guest  had  arrived  the  night  before. 
The  nurses  and  the  children  are  sitting  peacefully  at 
breakfast,  when  there  enters  to  them  a  housemaid, 
scornful,  scandalised,  out  of  breath  with  her  hurry  to 
impart  what  she  had  seen. 

"  He's  a-smoking  in  bed,"  she  says,  "  that  there  Mr. 
Hoggenheimer  !  He's  a-smoking  in  bed  !  " 

"  Some  of  them  do,"  says  nurse,  who  is  a  travelled 
person,  and  refuses  to  be  taken  by  surprise. 

"  Well,  of  all  the  nasty  .  .  ." 

"  Sh  !  "  says  nurse,  pointing  to  the  children,  all  eyes 
,and  ears. 

So  that  is  all  you  can  remember  about  the  house- 
maid and  Mr.  Hoggenheimer.  But  you  remember 
him — a  little  dark  man  who  sent  you  books  you  could 
not  read  at  Christmas,  and  brought  you  enchanting 
gingerbreads  covered  with  hundreds  and  thousands. 
You  thought  him  rather  funny,  but  you  liked  him, 
and  if  he  wanted  to  smoke  in  bed  why  not?  You 
liked  toys  in  bed  yourself,  and  you  would  have  taken 
the  dog  there  if  only  it  had  been  allowed.  Then 
you  come  back  again  to  the  present  hour,  nearly  all 
the  years  of  your  life  later,  and  you  are  in  a  railway 
carriage  with  six  German  householders  who,  like  Mr. 
Hoggenheimer,  want  cigars  in  and  out  of  season. 

"  To-morrow,"  you  say  to  your  Englishman ;  "  to- 
morrow I  shall  travel  in  a  Nichtraucher? 

"  But  then  I  can't  smoke,"  he  says  quite  truly. 

"  We  shall  not  travel  together." 

"  But  that  is  so  unsociable." 

"  I  would  rather  be  unsociable  than  suffocated,"  you 
explain.  "  I  have  suffered  tortures  to-day." 

"  Have  you  ?  But  you  always  say  you  don't  mind 
smoke." 

"  In  reason.     Seven  cigars  and  one  woman  are  not 


H2  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

reasonable.  Never  again  will  I  travel  with  seven 
cigars." 

"  I  thought  we  had  a  pleasant  journey,"  says  the 
Englishman  regretfully.  "  That  little  man  next  to 
you " 

"  Mr.  Hoggenheimer ?  " 

"Was  that  his  name? — I  couldn't  understand  all 
he  said,  but  he  had  an  amusing  face." 

"A  face  can  be  misleading,"  you  say;  "that  man 
bullies  his  wife." 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  " 

"  He  told  us  so.  He  smokes  before  breakfast  .  .  . 
while  he  is  dressing,  .  .  .  and  he  has  no  dressing 
room.  .  .  ." 

The  Englishman  looks  calm. 

"  They  do  take  one  into  their  confidence,"  he 
remarks.  "  My  neighbour  told  me  that  he  never 
could  eat  mayonnaise  of  salmon  directly  after  roast 
pork,  because  it  gave  him  peculiar  pains.  I  was  afraid 
you'd  hear  him  describe  his  symptoms ;  but  I  believe 
you  were  asleep." 

"  No,  I  wasn't,"  you  confess ;  "  I  heard  it  all,  and  I 
shut  my  eyes,  because  I  knew  if  I  opened  them  he'd 
address  himself  to  me.  I  shut  them  when  he  began 
talking  to  you  about  your  Magen  and  what  you  ought 
to  do  to  give  it  tone.  You  seemed  interested." 

"  It's  quite  an  interesting  subject,"  says  the  English- 
man, who  makes  friends  with  every  German  he  meets. 
"  He  is  not  in  the  least  like  an  Englishman,"  they  say 
to  you  cordially, — "  he  is  so  friendly  and  amiable." 


CHAPTER  XII 
HOUSEWIVES 

RENCH  WOMEN  are  the  best  housewives  in 
Europe,"  said  a  German  lady  who  knew  most 
European  countries  well ;  "  the  next  best  are  the 
English;  Germans  come  third."  The  lady  speaking 
was  one  whose  opinions  were  always  uttered  with  much 
charm,  but  ex-cathedra ;  so  that  you  found  it  impossible 
to  disagree  with  her  .  .  .  until  you  got  home.  But  to 
hear  the  supreme  excellence  of  the  Hausfrau  contested 
takes  the  breath  away ;  to  see  her  deposed  from  the 
first  place  by  one  of  her  own  countrywomen  dazzles 
the  eyes.  It  was  a  new  idea  to  me  that  any  women 
in  the  world  except  the  Germans  kept  house  at  all.  If 
you  live  amongst  Germans  when  you  are  young  you 
adopt  this  view  quite  insensibly  and  without  argument. 

"  My  son  is  in  England,"  you  hear  a  German  mother 
say.  "  I  am  uneasy  about  him.  I  fear  he  may  marry 
an  Englishwoman." 

"  They  sometimes  do,"  says  her  gossip,  shaking  her 
head. 

"It  would  break  my  heart.  The  women  of  that 
nation  know  nothing  of  housekeeping.  They  sit  in 
their  drawing-rooms  all  day,  while  their  husband's  hard- 
earned  money  is  wasted  in  the  kitchen.  Besides  .  .  , 
mein  armer  Karl — he  loves  Nudelsuppe  and  Kuken  mit 
SpargeL  What  does  an  Englishwoman  know  of  such 
8 


H4  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

things?  She  would  give  him  cold  mutton  to  eat,  and 
he  would  die  of  an  indigestion.  I  was  once  in  England 
in  my  youth,  and  when  I  got  back  we  had  a  Frikassee 
von  Hdhnchen  mit  Krebsen  for  dinner,  and  I  wept  with 
pleasure." 

"  Perhaps,"  says  the  gossip  consolingly,  "  your  Karl 
will  remember  these  things  and  fetch  himself  a  German 
wife." 

"  Poor  girl  ! "  says  Karl's  not-to-be-consoled  mother, 
"  she  would  have  to  live  in  England  and  keep  house 
there.  It  happened  to  my  niece  Greta  Lohring.  She 
had  a  new  cook  every  fortnight,  and  each  one  was 
worse  than  the  one  before.  In  England  when  a  cook 
spoils  a  pudding  she  puts  it  in  the  fire  and  makes 
another.  Imagine  the  eggs  that  are  used  under  such 
circumstances." 

I  remember  this  little  dialogue,  because  I  was  young 
and  ignorant  enough  at  the  time  to  ask  what  a  German 
did  when  she  spoilt  a  pudding,  and  was  promptly 
informed  that  in  Germany  such  things  could  not  happen. 
A  cook  was  not  allowed  to  make  puddings  unless  her 
mistress  stood  by  and  saw  that  she  made  them 
properly;  "unless  she  is  ^perfekte  Kochin"  added  Karl's 
mother,  "  and  then  she  does  not  spoil  things." 

A  German  friend,  not  the  travelled  one,  but  a  real 
home-baked  domestic  German,  took  me  one  hot  after- 
noon this  summer  to  pay  a  call,  and  at  once  fell  to 
talking  to  the  mistress  of  the  house  about  the  washing 
of  lace  curtains.  There  were  eight  windows  in  front 
of  the  flat,  and  each  window  had  a  pair  of  stiff  spotless 
lace  curtains,  and  each  curtain  had  been  washed  by 
the  lady's  own  hands.  My  friend  had  just  washed 
hers,  and  they  both  approached  the  subject  as  keenly 
as  two  gardeners  will  approach  a  question  of  bulbs  or 
Alpines.  There  are  different  ways  of  washing  a  white 


HOUSEWIVES  1 1 5 

curtain,  you  know,  and  different  methods  of  rinsing  and 
drying  it,  and  various  soaps.  Starch  is  used  too  at 
some  stage  of  the  process ;  at  least,  I  think  so.  But 
the  afternoon  was  hot  and  the  argument  involved. 
The  starch  I  will  not  swear  to,  but  I  will  swear  to  ten 
waters — ten  successive  cleansings  in  fresh  water  before 
the  soul  of  the  housewife  was  at  rest. 

"  And  how  do  you  wash  yours  ?  "  said  one  of  them, 
turning  to  me. 

"  Oh — I !  "  I  stammered,  taken  aback,  for  I  had  been 
nearly  asleep ;  "  I  send  a  post-card  to  Whiteley's,  and 
'they  fetch  them  one  week  and  bring  them  back  the 
next.  They  cost  is.  a  pair." 

The  two  German  ladies  looked  at  each  other  and 
smiled.  Then  they  politely  changed  the  subject. 

This  trivial  story  is  not  told  for  its  intrinsic  merits, 
but  because  it  illustrates  the  difference  of  method 
between  English  and  German  women.  The  German 
with  much  wear  and  tear  of  body  and  spirit  washes 
her  own  lace  curtains.  She  saves  a  little  money,  and 
spends  a  great  deal  of  time  over  them.  The  English- 
woman, when  she  possibly  can,  likes  to  spend  her  time 
in  a  different  way.  In  both  countries  there  are 
admirable  housekeepers,  and  middlmg  housekeepers, 
and  extremely  bad  ones.  The  German  who  goes  the 
wrong  way  about  it  sends  her  husband  to  the  Kneipe 
by  her  eternal  fussing  and  fidgeting.  She  is  not  his 
companion  mentally,  but  the  cook's,  for  her  mind  has 
sunk  to  the  cook's  level,  while  her  temper  through 
constant  fault-finding  is  on  a  lower  one.  The  English- 
woman sends  her  husband  to  the  club  or  the  public 
house,  according  to  his  social  station,  because  she  is 
incapable  of  giving  him  eatable  food.  But  the  English 
belief  that  German  housewives  are  invariably  dull  and 
stodgy  is  not  a  whit  more  ignorant  and  untrue  than 


n6  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

the  German  belief  that  all  Englishwomen  are  neglectful, 
extravagant  housekeepers.  The  Englishwoman  keeps 
house  in  her  own  way,  and  it  is  different  from  the 
German  way,  but  it  is  often  admirable.  The  comfort, 
the  organisation,  and  the  unbroken  peace  of  a  well- 
managed  English  household  are  not  surpassed,  in  some 
details  not  equalled,  anywhere  in  the  world. 

The  German  ideal  (for  women)  is  one  of  service  and 
self-sacrifice.  Let  her  learn  betimes  to  serve,  says 
Goethe,  for  by  service  only  shall  she  attain  to  command 
and  to  the  authority  in  the  house  that  is  her  due. 

"  Dienen  lerne  bei  Zeiten  das  Weib  nach  ihrer  Bestimmung, 
Denn  durch  Dienen  allein  gelangt  sie  endlich  zum  Herrschen 
Zu  der  verdienten  Gewalt,  die  doch  ihr  im  Ilause  gehoret, 
Dienet  die  Schwester  dem  Bruder  doch  friih,  sie  dienet  den  Eltern  ; 
Und  ihr  Leben  ist  immer  ein  ewiges  Gehen  und  Kommen, 
Oder  ein  Heben  und  Tragen,  Bereiten  und  Schaffen  fiir  Andre; 
Wohl  ihr,  wenn  sie  daran  sich  gewohnt,  dass  kein  Weg  ihr  zu  sauer 
Wird,  und  die  Stunden  der  Nacht  ihr  sind  wie  die  Stunden  des  Tages : 
Dass  ihr  niemals  die  Arbeit  zu  klein  und  die  Nadel  zu  fein  diinkt, 
Dass  sie  sich  ganz  vergisst,  und  leben  mag  nur  in  Andern ! " 

She  is  to  serve  her  brothers  and  parents.  Her 
whole  life  is  to  be  a  going  and  coming,  a  lifting  and 
carrying,  a  preparing  and  acting  for  others.  Well  for 
her  if  she  treads  her  way  unweariedly,  if  night  is  as 
day  to  her,  it  no  task  seems  too  small  and  no  needle 
too  fine.  She  is  to  forget  herself  altogether  and  live 
in  others. 

It  is  a  beautiful  passage,  and  an  unabashed 
magnificent  masculine  egotism  speaks  in  every  line  of 
it.  Whenever  I  read  it  I  think  of  the  little  girl  in 
Punch  whose  little  brother  called  to  her,  "  Come  here, 
Effie.  I  wants  you."  And  Effie  answered,  "  Thank 
you,  Archie,  but  I  wants  myself! "  Herr  Riehl  quotes 
the  passage  at  the  end  of  his  own  exhortations  to  his 


HOUSEWIVES  117 

countrywomen,  which  are  all  in  the  same  spirit,  and 
were  not  needed  by  them.  German  women  have 
always  been  devoted  to  their  homes  and  their  families, 
and  they  are  as  subservient  to  their  menfolk  as  the 
Japanese.  They  do  not  actually  fall  on  their  knees 
before  their  lords,  but  the  tone  of  voice  in  which  a 
woman  of  the  old  school  speaks  of  die  Herren  is  enough 
to  make  a  French,  American,  or  Englishwoman  think 
there  is  something  to  be  said  for  the  modern  revolt 
against  men.  For  any  woman  with  a  spice  of  feminine 
perversity  in  her  nature  will  be  driven  to  the  other 
camp  when  she  meets  extremes ;  so  that  in  Germany 
she  feels  ready  to  rise  against  overbearing  males  ;  whilst 
in  America  she  misses  some  of  the  regard  for  masculine 
judgment  and  authority  that  German  women  show  in 
excess.  At  least,  it  seems  an  excess  of  duty  to  us 
when  we  hear  of  a  German  bride  who  will  not  go 
down  to  dinner  with  the  man  appointed  by  her  hostess 
till  she  has  asked  her  husband's  permission ;  and  when 
we  hear  of  another  writing  from  Germany  that,  although 
in  England  she  had  ardently  believed  in  total  absten- 
tion, she  had  now  changed  her  opinion  because  her 
husband  drank  beer  and  desired  her  to  approve  of  it. 
But  it  was  an  Englishwoman  who,  when  asked  about 
some  question  of  politics,  said  quite  simply  and  honestly, 
"  I  think  what  Jack  thinks." 

The  truth  is,  that  the  women  of  the  two  great 
Germanic  races  are  kin.  There  are  differences,  chiefly 
those  of  history,  manners,  and  environment.  The 
likeness  is  profound. 

"  Par  une  rencontre  singuliere,"  says  M.  Taine,  "  les 
femmes  sont  plus  femmes  et  les  hommes  plus  hommes 
ici  qu'ailleurs.  Les  deux  natures  vont  chacune  a  son 
extreme  ;  chez  les  uns  vers  1'audace,  1'esprit  d'entreprise 
et  de  resistance,  le  caractere  guerrier,  imp<£rieux  et 


n8  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

rude ;  chez  les  autres  vers  la  douceur,  Tabne'gation,  la 
patience,  1'affection  ine'puisable ;  chose  inconnue  dans 
les  pays  lointains,  surtout  en  France,  la  femme  ici  se 
donne  sans  se  reprendre  et  met  sa  gloire  et  son  devoir 
a  obeir,  a  pardonner,  a  adorer,  sans  souhaiter  ni  pre- 
tendre  autre  chose  que  se  fondre  et  s'absorber  chaque 
jour  davantage  en  celui  qu'elle  a  volontairement  et  pour 
toujours  choisi.  C'est  cet  instinct,  un  antique  instinct 
Germanique,  que  ces  grands  peintres  de  I'instinct 
mettent  tous  ici  en  lumiere !  .  .  .  L'ame  dans  cette 
race,  est  a  la  fois  primitive  et  serieuse.  La  candeur 
chez  les  femmes  y  subsiste  plus  longtemps  qu'ailleurs. 
Elles  perdent  moins  vite  le  respect,  elles  pesent  moins 
vite  les  valeurs  et  les  caracteres :  elles  sont  moins 
promptes  a  deviner  le  mal  et  a  mesurer  leurs  maris.  .  .  . 
Elles  n'ont  pas  la  nettete,  la  hardiesse  d'ide'es,  1'assurance 
de  conduite,  la  pre'cocite'  qui  chez  nous  en  six  mois  font 
d'une  jeune  fille  une  femme  d'intrigue  et  une  reine  de 
salon.  La  vie  enferme'e  et  I'ob&ssance  leur  sont  plus 
faciles.  Plus  pliantes  et  plus  se'dentaires  elles  sont  en 
meme  temps  plus  concentre'es,  plus  inte'rieures,  plus 
disposers  a  suivre  des  yeux  le  noble  r£ve  qu'on  nomme 
le>  devoir.  .  .  ." 

I  cannot  imagine  what  M.  Taine  means  by  saying 
that  Englishwomen  lead  a  more  sedentary  and  se- 
questered life  than  Frenchwomen,  but  the  rest  of  his 
description  presents  a  well-known  type  in  England 
and  Germany.  "  Voir  la  peinture  de  ce  caractere  dans 
toute  la  litte'rature  anglaise  et  allemande,"  he  says  in  a 
footnote.  "  Le  plus  grand  des  observateurs,  Stendhal 
tout  impre'gne'  des  moeurs  et  des  ide*es  Italiennes  et 
franchises,  est  stupefait  a  cette  vue.  II  ne  comprend  rien 
a  cette  espece  de  deVouement,  '  a  cette  servitude,  que  les 
maris  Anglais,  sous  le  nom  de  devoir,  ont  eu  1'esprit  d'im- 
poser  a  leurs  femmes,'  Ce  sont '  rios  moeurs  de  s^rail.' " 


HOUSEWIVES  119 

Here  the  "  greatest  of  all  observers "  seems  to  talk 
nonsense,  for  marriage  in  the  seraglio  does  not  hinge 
on  the  submission  of  one  wife  to  one  husband,  but  on 
a  plurality  of  wives  that  English  and  German  women 
have  only  endured  in  certain  historic  cases.  In  both 
western  countries  marriage  has  its  roots  in  the  fidelity 
of  one  man  and  one  woman  to  each  other.  A  well- 
known  English  novelist  once  said  quite  truly  that  an 
Englishman  very  rarely  distrusts  his  wife,  and  never 
by  any  chance  distrusts  the  girl  who  is  to  become  his 
wife ;  and  just  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  German  of 
the  better  classes.  In  both  countries  you  will  find 
sections  of  society  above  and  below  where  morals  are 
lax  and  manners  corrupt.  German  professors  write 
sketches  of  London  in  which  our  busy  grimy  city  is 
held  up  to  a  virtuous  Germania  as  the  modern  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah ;  and  the  Continental  Anglophobe  likes 
nothing  better  than  to  entertain  you  with  pictures  of 
our  decadent  society,  pictures  that  really  do  credit  to 
the  vividness  and  detail  of  his  imagination.  Meanwhile 
our  press  assures  the  respectable  Briton  that  Berlin  is 
the  most  profligate  city  in  Europe,  and  that  scurrilous 
German  novels  about  the  German  army  will  show  him 
what  the  rotten  state  of  things  really  is  in  that  much  over- 
rated organisation.  But  these  national  amenities  are 
misleading.  The  bulk  of  the  nation  in  both  countries 
is  sound,  and  family  life  still  flourishes  both  here  and 
there.  The  men  of  the  race,  in  spite  of  Herr  Riehl's 
prognostications,  still  have  the  whip  hand,  as  much  as 
is  good  for  them  in  England,  a  little  more  than  is  good 
for  them  in  Germany.  If  you  go  to  Germany  you 
must  not  expect  a  man  to  open  a  door  for  you,  or  to 
wait  on  you  at  afternoon  tea,  or  to  carry  a  parcel  for 
you  in  the  street.  He  will  kiss  your  hand  when  he 
greets  you,  he  will  address  you  as  gracious  lady  or 


120  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

gracious  miss,  he  will  put  his  heels  together  and  make 
you  beautiful  bows,  he  will  pay  you  compliments  that 
are  manifestly,  almost  admittedly,  artificial.  That  at 
least  is  one  type  of  man.  He  may  leave  out  the  kisses 
and  the  bows  and  the  compliments  and  be  quite  un- 
disguisedly  bearish ;  or  he  may  be  something  betwixt 
and  between,  kindly,  concerned  for  your  pleasure  and 
welfare.  But  whatever  he  is  he  will  never  forget  for  a 
moment  that  you  are  "  only  a  woman."  If  you  marry 
him  he  will  expect  to  rule  everywhere  except  in  the 
kitchen,  and  as  you  value  a  quiet  life  you  had  better 
take  care  that  the  kitchen  produces  what  pleases  him. 
On  occasion  he  will  assert  his  authority  with  some 
violence  and  naivete*.  No  one  can  be  long  amongst 
Germans,  or  even  read  many  German  novels,  without 
coming  across  instances  of  what  I  mean.  For  example, 
there  was  once  a  quarrel  between  lovers  that  all  turned 
upon  a  second  glass  of  champagne.  The  girl  did  not 
want  it,  and  the  man  insisted  that  she  should  drink  it 
whether  she  wanted  it  or  not.  What  happened  in  the 
end  is  forgotten  and  does  not  matter.  It  is  the  com- 
ment of  the  historian  that  remains  in  the  memory. 

"  Her  family  had  spoilt  her,"  said  he.  "  When  they 
are  married  and  my  friend  gets  her  to  himself  she  will 
not  behave  so." 

"  But  why  should  she  drink  a  second  glass  of  cham- 
pagne if  she  did  not  want  it  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Because  he  commanded  her  to,"  said  this  Petruchio, 
beginning  to  bristle  at  once ;  and  he  straightway  told 
me  another  story  about  a  man  who  threw  his  lady-love's 
dog  into  a  pond,  not  because  the  dog  needed  a  bath, 
but  in  assertion  of  his  authority.  The  lady  had  wished 
to  keep  her  dog  out  of  the  water. 

"  Did  she  ever  forgive  the  man  ?  "  said  I. 

"  Forgive ! — What  was  there  to  forgive  ?     The  man 


HOUSEWIVES  121 

wished  to  put  the  dog  in  the  pond.  A  man  must  know 
how  to  enforce  his  will  ...  or  he  is  no  man." 

I  nearly  said  "Lor!"  like  Mr.  Tweddle  in  The 
Tinted  Venus,  but  in  Germany  it's  a  serious  matter, 
a  sort  of  lese  majesty  to  laugh  at  the  rightful  rule  of 
man.  You  must  expect  to  see  them  waited  on  hand 
and  foot,  and  to  take  this  service  as  a  matter  of  course. 
I  have  known  Englishmen  embarrassed  by  this  state 
of  affairs, 

"  They  will  get  me  chairs,"  complained  one,  "  and  at 
table  the  daughters  jump  up  and  wait  on  me.  It's 
horrid." 

"  Not  at  all,"  said  I.  "  It's  your  due.  You  must 
behave  as  if  you  were  used  to  it." 

"  I  can't.  The  other  day  I  got  the  daughters  of  the 
house  to  sit  still  while  I  handed  about  cups  of  tea,  and 
if  some  of  the  old  boys  didn't  jump  down  their  throats 
and  tell  them  they'd  no  business  to  let  me  forget  my 
dignity.  Bless  my  dignity  ...  if  it's  such  a  tender 
plant  as  that.  ..." 

"  Sh  !  "  I  said.  "  They  must  have  been  old-fashioned 
people.  In  some  houses  young  men  hand  cups." 

"  They  look  jolly  self-conscious  while  they're  doing 
it,  ...  as  if  they  didn't  half  like  it.  You  bet,  they 
take  it  out  of  their  womenfolk  when  they  get  home. 
Look  at  that  chap  Miiller ! " 

"Where  is  he?" 

"  In  Dresden,  where  I  lived  last  winter.  He  stormed 
the  house  down  because  his  wife  took  up  his  glass  of 
beer  and  drank  before  he  did.  Nearly  had  a  fit.  Said 
his  dignity  as  a  husband  was  damaged.  Then  he 
turned  to  me  and  asked  whether  even  in  England  a 
wife  would  be  so  bold  and  bad  ?  " 

"  What  did  you  say  ?  " 

"  I  didn't  say  anything.     I  looked  sick." 


122  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

"  That's  no  use.  You  should  say  a  great  deal,  and 
wave  your  arms  about  and  hammer  on  the  table.  You 
don't  know  how  to  show  emotion." 

"  I  should  hope  not,"  says  the  Englishman.  "  But 
German  women  are  always  telling  me  they  envy  the 
women  in  our  country." 

"  That's  their  politeness,"  I  assure  him.  "  They 
don't  mean  it.  They're  as  happy  as  the  day  is  long. 
Besides,  Germans  don't  get  drunk  and  beat  their  wives 
with  pokers.  You  know  perfectly  well  that  most 
Englishmen " 

But,  of  course,  whatever  you  say  about  German 
women  of  the  present  day  can  be  contradicted  by 
anybody  who  chooses  to  describe  one  at  either  end  of 
the  scale,  for  the  contrasts  there  are  violent.  You  will 
find  in  the  same  street  a  woman  who  exercises  a 
profession,  lives  more  or  less  at  her  club,  and  is  as 
independent  as  her  brother;  and  women  who  are 
household  drudges,  with  neither  leisure  nor  spirit  for 
any  occupation  that  would  enrich  their  minds. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

HOUSEWIVES  (Continued) 

IN  Germany  the  home  is  furnished  by  the  bride's 
parents,  and  the  household  linen  forms  part  of  her 
trousseau  and  is  marked  by  her  monogram.  In 
describing  the  furniture  of  a  German  flat,  you  must 
first  decide  whether  you  are  going  to  choose  one 
furnished  to-day  by  a  fashionable  young  woman  in 
Berlin  or  Hamburg ;  or  one  furnished  by  her  parents 
twenty  to  twenty-five  years  ago.  Modern  German 
furniture  is  quite  easily  suggested  to  the  English 
imagination,  because  some  of  it  looks  as  if  the  artist 
had  visited  our  Arts  and  Crafts  Exhibitions  and  then 
made  his  own  designs  in  a  nightmare ;  while  some  has 
accepted  English  inspiration  and  adapted  itself  wisely 
and  cleverly  to  German  needs.  To-day  a  German 
bride  will  have  in  her  bedroom  a  wardrobe  with  a  big 
mirror,  a  toilet  table  or  chest,  a  marble-topped  wash- 
stand  and  two  narrow  bedsteads,  all  of  fumed  wood. 
If  she  has  money  and  understanding  the  things  have 
probably  come  from  England,  not  from  an  emporium, 
but  from  one  of  our  artists  in  furniture  whom  the 
Germans  know  better  and  value  more  highly  than  we 
do  ourselves.  But  if  she  has  money  only  she  can  buy 
florid  pretentious  stuff  that  outdoes  in  ugliness  the 
worst  productions  of  our  "  suite "  sellers.  Her  mother, 

however,  probably  did  without  any  kind  of  toilet  table 

123 


124  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

or  glass  in  her  wardrobe.  Twenty  years  ago  you 
occasionally  saw  such  things  in  the  houses  of  rich 
people,  but  they  were  quite  unusual.  A  small  hanging 
glass  behind  the  washstand  was  considered  enough  for 
any  ordentliche  Frau.  Nowadays  in  rare  cases  the 
ordentliche  Frau  actually  has  silver  brushes  and  powder 
pots  and  trinket  boxes.  But  as  a  rule  she  still  does 
without  such  things ;  she  brushes  her  beautiful  hair 
with  an  ivory  or  a  wooden  brush,  and  leaves  paint  and 
powder  to  ladies  who  are  presumably  not  ordentlich.  At 
one  time  narrow  brass  or  iron  bedsteads  were  introduced 
from  England,  and  were  used  a  great  deal  in  Germany. 
I  remember  seeing  one  all  forlorn  in  a  vast  magnificent 
palace  bedroom  where  a  fourposter  hung  with  brocade 
or  tapestry  would  have  looked  more  at  home.  But 
the  real  old-fashioned  bedstead,  still  much  liked  and 
formerly  seen  everywhere  was  always  of  wood,  single 
and  with  deep  sides  to  hold  the  heavy  box  mattress. 
In  Mariana  Starcke's  Travels  in  Europe,  published  in 
1833,  she  says  of  an  inn  in  Villach,  "  tall  people  cannot 
sleep  comfortably  here  or  in  any  part  of  Germany ; 
the  beds,  which  are  very  narrow,  being  placed  in 
wooden  frames  or  boxes,  so  short  that  any  person 
who  happened  to  be  above  five  feet  high  must 
absolutely  sit  up  all  night  supported  by  pillows ; 
and  this,  in  fact,  is  the  way  in  which  the  Germans 
sleep." 

I  think  this  is  a  statement  that  will  be  as  surprising 
to  any  German  who  reads  it  as  the  statements  made 
by  Germans  about  England  have  often  been  to  me. 
It  is  true,  however,  that  tall  people  do  find  the  old- 
fashioned  German  bedsteads  short ;  and  it  is  true  that 
the  big  square  downy  pillows  are  supported  by  a 
wedge-shaped  bolster  called  a  Keilkissen.  But  the 
Plumeau  is  what  the  German  loves,  and  the  Briton 


HOUSEWIVES  125 

hates  above  all  things :  the  mountain  of  down  or 
feathers  that  tumbles  off  on  cold  nights  and  stays  on 
on  hot  ones.  You  hate  it  all  the  year  round,  because 
in  winter  it  is  too  short  and  in  summer  it  is  an 
oppression.  Sometimes  the  sheet  is  buttoned  to  it,  and 
then  though  you  are  a  traveller  you  are  less  than  ever 
content.  At  the  best  you  never  succumb  to  its 
attractions.  Every  spring  the  good  German  housewife 
takes  her  maid  and  her  Plumeaux  to  a  cleaner  and  sits 
there  while  the  feathers  are  purified  by  machinery  and 
returned  to  their  bags.  In  this  way  she  makes  sure 
of  getting  back  her  own  feathers  both  in  quality  and 
quantity.  Except  for  the  Plumeaux  and  the  want  of  a 
dressing-table  and  proper  mirror,  an  ordinary  German 
bedroom  is  very  comfortable  and  always  very  clean. 
However  plain  it  is  you  can  use  it  partly  as  a  sitting- 
room,  because  a  sofa  and  a  good  sized  table  in  front  of 
it  are  considered  an  indispensable  part  of  its  furniture. 
When  Germans  come  to  England  and  have  to  live  in 
lodgings  or  poorly  furnished  inns,  the  bedrooms  seem 
to  them  most  comfortless  and  ill  provided.  The  poor 
Idealist  who  lived  as  an  exile  in  London  in  the  early 
Victorian  age  describes  her  forlorn  room  with  nothing 
in  it  but  a  "  colossal "  bed,  a  washstand,  and  a  chest  of 
drawers,  and  though  she  does  not  describe  them,  you 
who  know  London  from  that  side  can  see  the  half- 
dirty  honey-combed  counterpane,  the  untempting 
cotton  sheets,  the  worn  uncleanly  carpet,  the  grained 
or  painted  furniture  with  doors  and  drawers  that  will 
not  shut ;  and  if  you  know  Germany  too  you  must  in 
honesty  compare  with  it  the  pleasant  rooms  you  have 
inhabited  there  for  less  rent  than  she  paid  her  Mrs. 
Quickly, — rooms  with  cool  clean  painted  floors,  solid 
old  dark  elm  cupboards,  and  bedsteads  that  when  you 
had  pitched  the  Plumeau  on  the  floor  or  the  sofa  were 


126  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

inviting  because  they  were  made  with  spotless  home- 
spun linen. 

What  we  call  the  drawing-room  used  to  be  extremely 
chill  and  formal  in  Germany,  but  it  has  never  been 
as  hideously  overloaded  as  English  drawing-rooms 
belonging  to  people  who  do  not  know  better.  The 
"  suite "  of  furniture  covered  with  rep  or  brocade  was 
everywhere,  and  the  rep  was  frequently  grass-green  or 
magenta.  There  was  invariably  a  sofa  and  a  table  in 
front  of  the  sofa,  and  a  rug  or  a  small  carpet  under  the 
table.  Even  in  these  days  this  arrangement  prevails 
and  must  continue  to  do  so  while  the  sofa  is  considered 
the  place  of  honour  to  which  the  hostess  invites  her 
leading  guest.  If  you  go  to  Germany  in  ignorance  of 
the  social  importance  attached  to  the  sofa,  you  may 
blunder  quite  absurdly  and  sit  down  uninvited  or  when 
your  age  or  your  sex  does  not  entitle  you  to  a  seat 
there.  I  was  once  present  when  an  English  girl 
innocently  chose  a  corner  of  the  sofa  instead  of  a  chair, 
though  there  were  older  women  in  the  room.  The 
hostess  promptly  and  audibly  told  her  to  get  up,  for 
she  knew  it  was  not  an  affair  to  pass  off  as  a  joke.  In 
England  the  question  of  precedence  comes  up  chiefly 
at  the  dinner-table.  The  host  and  hostess  must  send 
the  right  people  together  and  place  them  correctly  too. 
In  Germany  you  have  to  know  as  hostess  who  is  to  sit 
on  the  sofa ;  and  your  decision  may  be  complicated  by 
the  absurd  titles  of  your  guests.  For  instance,  one 
Frau  Direktor  may  be  the  wife  of  a  post  office 
official  who  had  a  university  education,  and  in  Germany 
a  university  education  counts ;  while  another  Frau 
Direktor,  though  she  can  afford  better  clothes,  is 
merely  the  wife  of  the  man  who  manages  the  factory 
in  the  next  village.  I  have  heard  a  story  of  a  Frau 
Kreisrichter  and  a  Frau  Actuar  that  ended  in  a  life- 


HOUSEWIVES  127 

long  feud,  and  it  all  turned  on  a  Kaffee  Klatsch  and 
the  wrong  woman  on  the  sofa.  It  it  not  easy  to  know 
what  to  do  about  these  ridiculous  titles  in  Germany, 
because  some  people  insist  on  them  and  some  laugh  at 
them  as  much  as  we  do.  I  once  asked  a  lady  who  had 
the  best  right  to  know,  about  using  military  titles  instead 
of  names :  Herr  Lieutenant,  Herr  Major,  and  so  on. 
She  was  quite  explicit.  "  Mir  ist  es  ein  Greuel"  she 
said,  and  went  on  to  tell  me  that  it  was  only  done  as 
one  might  expect  by  people  who  did  not  know  better, 
and  of  course  by  servants.  All  the  same,  it  is  well  to 
be  careful  and  study  the  individual  case.  I  know  of 
an  American  who  addressed  his  professor  as  Professor 
Lachs, 

"  Where  are  your  manners,  mein  Herr  ? "  said  the 
professor  in  a  fury,  "  I  am  Herr  Professor  Dr.  Lachs  to 
every  student  in  this  laboratory." 

But  when  it  comes  to  Mrs.  Tax-Collector  and  Mrs. 
Organist  and  Mrs.  Head  Master,  and  it  does  come  to 
this  quite  seriously,  it  is  difficult  for  the  foreigner  to 
appraise  values.  The  length  of  the  titles,  too,  is  a 
stumbling-block.  You  may  marry  a  harmless  Herr 
Braun,  and  in  course  of  time  become  Frau  Wirklicher- 
geheimeroberregierungsrath.  In  this  case  I  don't 
think  your  friends  would  use  the  whole  of  your  title 
every  time  they  addressed  you ;  but  you  would 
undoubtedly  have  a  seat  on  the  sofa  before  all  the 
small  fry. 

On  the  table  in  front  of  the  sofa  there  used  always 
to  be  a  heavy  coloured  cloth,  and  then  put  diamond- 
wise  a  light  embroidered  or  lace  one.  A  vase  of 
artificial  or  real  flowers,  according  to  taste,  stood 
exactly  in  the  middle,  and  a  few  books  in  ornamental 
bindings  on  either  side.  There  would  be  very  few 
ornaments,  but  these  few  would  be  good  of  their  kind, 


128  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

though  probably  hideous.  Luckily  the  family  did  not 
assemble  here  on  State  occasions.  For  every-day  use 
there  was  a  Wohnzimmer  soberly  furnished  with  solid 
well  made  chairs  and  cupboards.  Here  the  mistress 
of  the  house  kept  her  palms,  her  work-table,  and  her 
pet  birds.  Here  her  husband  smoked  his  after-dinner 
cigar  and  drank  his  coffee  before  going  to  his  work 
again.  Here  the  elder  children  did  their  lessons  for 
next  day's  school,  and  here  at  night  the  family  sat 
round  one  lamp, — the  father  smoking,  the  mother 
probably  mending,  the  children  playing  games.  For 
German  fathers  do  not  live  at  the  Kneipe.  They  are 
occasionally  to  be  found  with  their  families.  When 
the  flat  was  not  large  enough  to  furnish  a  third  sitting- 
room,  the  dining-room  was  used  in  this  way.  A  modern 
German  family  still  lives  in  any  room  rather  than  the 
drawing-room,  but  it  has  learned  how  to  make  a 
drawing-room  attractive.  The  odious  "suite"  has 
been  abolished  or  dispersed,  and  a  lighter,  less  formal 
scheme  of  decoration  is  making  its  way.  You  see 
charming  rooms  in  Germany  nowadays,  but  they  are 
never  quite  like  English  ones,  even  when  your  friends 
point  to  a  wicker  chair  or  an  Eastern  carpet  and  tell 
you  that  they  love  everything  English  and  have 
furnished  in  the  English  fashion.  In  the  first  place, 
you  do  not  see  piles  of  magazines  and  papers  or  of 
library  books  in  a  German  drawing-room.  They  would 
be  considered  scandalously  untidy,  and  put  away  in  a 
cupboard  at  once.  If  there  are  cut  flowers  they  are 
not  arranged  as  they  are  here.  On  ceremonial  occasions 
and  anniversaries  great  quantities  of  flowers  are  pre- 
sented, but  they  are  mostly  wired  and  probably  arranged 
in  a  fanciful  shape.  The  favourite  shape  changes  with 
the  season  and  the  fashion  of  the  moment.  One  year 
those  who  wish  to  honour  you  and  have  plenty  of 


HOUSEWIVES  129 

money,  will  send  you  lyres  and  harps  made  of  violets, 
pansies,  pinks,  cornflowers,  any  flower  that  will  lend 
itself  meekly  to  popular  design.  The  favourite  design 
in  Berlin  one  spring  was  a  large  flat  sofa  cushion  of 
Guelder  roses  with  tall  sprays  of  roses  or  carnations 
dancing  from  it.  On  ordinary  occasions  market  bunches 
are  put  into  water  as  an  English  cottager  puts  in  his 
flowers,  level  and  tightly  packed.  But  on  a  festive 
occasion  in  a  rich  man's  house  you  hear  of  a  long 
dinner  table  strewn  with  branches  of  pink  hawthorn 
and  peonies.  In  fact,  a  riot  of  flowers  is  now  considered 
dorrect  by  wealthy  people,  but  you  do  not  find  them 
here  and  there  and  everywhere,  whether  people  are 
wealthy  or  not,  as  you  do  in  England.  That  is  partly 
because  there  are  so  few  private  gardens. 

The  extreme  tidiness  of  German  rooms  is  a  constant 
source  of  surprise.  They  are  as  guiltless  of  "  litter " 
as  the  showrooms  of  a  furniture  emporium.  You 
would  think  that  the  people  who  live  in  them  were 
never  employed  if  you  did  not  know  that  Germans 
were  never  idle.  Every  bit  of  embroidery  has  its  use 
and  its  own  corner.  The  article  now  being  embroidered 
is  neatly  folded  inside  the  work-basket  or  work-table 
when  it  is  not  in  the  lady's  hands.  The  one  book  she 
is  reading  will  be  near.  Any  other  books  she  possesses 
will  be  on  shelves,  and  probably  behind  glass  doors. 
Each  chair  has  its  place,  each  cushion,  each  ornament. 
Even  where  there  are  children  German  rooms  never 
look  disarranged.  I  can  truly  say  I  have  only  once 
seen  a  German  room  untidy  and  dusty,  and  that  was 
in  a  house  with  no  one  but  a  "  Mamsell "  in  charge ; 
and  she  apologised  and  explained  that  it  was  to  be 
spring  cleaned  next  day.  There  is,  by  the  way,  a 
curious  litter  of  things  kept  on  a  German  sideboard 
in  many  houses, — coffee  machines,  silver,  useful  and 
9 


130  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

ornamental  glass,  great  blue  beer  jugs,  and  suchlike ; 
but  they  are  kept  there  with  intention  and  not  by 
neglectful  accident.  Then  the  narrow  corridor  of  a 
German  flat  is  often  uncomfortably  choked  with  articles 
of  household  use:  lamps,  for  instance,  and  a  re- 
frigerator, and  the  safe  in  which  the  mistress  locks  her 
food  ;  spare  cupboards  too,  and  neat  piles  of  papers  and 
magazines.  It  will  be  inelegant,  but  it  will  be  orderly 
and  clean. 

It  is  the  way  in  this  country  to  laugh  at  the  German 
Hausfrau,  and  pity  her  for  a  drudge ;  and  it  is  the  way 
with  many  Germans  to  talk  as  if  all  Englishwomen 
were  pleasure  loving  and  incompetent.  The  less  people 
know  of  a  foreign  nation  the  greater  nonsense  they 
talk  in  general,  and  the  more  cocksure  they  are  about 
their  own  opinions.  A  year  ago,  when  I  was  in 
Germany,  I  asked  a  friend  I  could  trust  if  there 
really  was  much  Anglophobia  abroad  except  in  the 
newspapers.  She  reflected  a  little  before  she  answered, 
for  she  was  honest  and  intelligent. 

"  There  is  none  amongst  people  like  ourselves,"  she 
said, — "  people  who  know  the  world  a  little.  But  you 
come  across  it  ?  "  She  turned  to  her  husband. 

"There  are  others  like  G.,"  she  said.  "He  turns 
green  if  anyone  speaks  of  England,  and  he  says 
Shakespeare  is  dumm.  You  see,  he  has  never  been 
out  of  Germany,  and  has  never  met  any  English  people." 

So  I  told  her  about  my  English  cook,  who  snorted 
with  scorn  when  I  assured  her  Germans  considered 
rabbits  vermin  and  would  not  eat  them. 

"  H  .  .  .  ph ! "  she  said,  "  I  shouldn't  have  thought 
foreigners  were  so  particular." 

The  average  German  housewife  has  to  keep  the 
house  going  on  exceedingly  small  means  and  with 
inefficient  help.  It  is  her  pride  and  pleasure  to  make 


HOUSEWIVES  131 

a  little  go  a  long  way,  and  she  can  only  achieve  this  by 
working  with  her  hands.  Probably  her  servant  cannot 
cook,  but  she  can,  and  it  would  never  occur  to  her  to 
let  her  husband  and  children  eat  ill-prepared  food 
because  servants  do  not  like  ladies  in  the  kitchen.  A 
German  lady,  like  a  princess  of  ancient  Greece, 
considers  that  it  becomes  her  to  do  anything  she 
chooses  in  her  own  house,  and  that  the  most  convenient 
household  workshop  is  the  kitchen.  The  Idealist  from 
whom  I  have  quoted  before  was  the  daughter  of  a  well- 
known  German  diplomatist,  and  she  had  been  used 
since  childhood  to  the  atmosphere  of  Courts.  She  was 
an  accomplished  well-born  woman  of  the  world,  but  she 
had  not  been  a  week  in  her  sordid  London  lodgings 
with  the  woman  she  calls  Mrs.  Quickly,  before  she 
blundered  in  her  innocent  German  way — into  the 
lodging-house  kitchen.  Figure  to  yourself  the  stupe- 
faction and  the  indignation  of  Mrs.  Quickly,  probably 
engaged,  though  the  Idealist  does  not  say  so,  in  dining 
off  the  foreign  woman's  beef.  "  I  went  down  to  the 
kitchen,"  says  Fraulein  von  Meysenbug,  "  with  a 
muslin  gown  on  my  arm  to  ask  for  an  iron  so  that  I 
could  iron  my  gown  there.  The  kitchen  was  Mrs. 
Quickly's  true  kingdom ;  here  she  alone  reigned  at  the 
hearth,  for  the  servant  was  not  allowed  to  approach  the 
saucepans.  Mrs.  Quickly  looked  at  me  with  uncon- 
cealed astonishment  as  I  came  in,  but  when  I  proffered 
my  request  her  astonishment  turned  to  wrath.  *  What ! ' 
she  shrieked,  '  a  lady  ironing  in  the  kitchen  ?  That  is 
impossible.'  And  with  the  mien  of  offended  majesty 
she  snatched  the  gown  from  me,  and  ordered  the  little 
maid  servant  to  put  an  iron  in  the  fire  and  to  iron  the 
gown ;  then  she  turned  to  me  and  said  with  tragic 
emphasis, '  You  are  a  foreigner.  You  don't  understand 
our  English  ways :  we  consider  it  extremely  unladylike 


132  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

for  a  lady  to  enter  the  kitchen,  and  worse  still  if  she 
wants  to  iron  her  own  gown.  No,  ma'am,  please  to 
ring  the  bell  when  you  require  anything;  otherwise 
you  will  ruin  my  servants.'  Much  ashamed  of  my 
ignorance  on  this  higher  plane  of  English  custom," 
continues  the  Idealist, "  I  crept  back  to  my  parlour  and 
laughed  heartily  as  I  looked  round  the  dirty,  wretchedly 
furnished  room,  and  reflected  on  the  abyss  set  by  pre- 
judice between  the  ground-floor  and  the  basement." 

"  How  do  you  like  your  new  German  governess  ?  "  I 
once  asked  an  English  friend  who  lived  in  the  country 
and  had  just  engaged  a  German  lady  for  her  only 
daughter. 

"  Oh  !  I  like  her,"  said  my  friend  without  enthusiasm. 
"  She  is  a  brilliant  musician  and  a  fine  linguist  and  all 
that.  But  she  has  such  odd  ideas  about  what  a  girl 
ought  to  know.  The  other  day  I  actually  caught  her 
teaching  Patricia  to  dust" 

"If  you  don't  watch  her,"  I  said,  "she'll  probably 
teach  Patricia  to  cook." 

My  friend  looked  anxious  first,  and  then  relieved. 

"  I  don't  see  how  she  could  do  that,"  she  said.  "  The 
cook  would  never  have  them  in  the  kitchen  for  five 
minutes.  But  now  you  mention  it,  I  believe  she  can 
cook.  When  things  go  wrong  she  seems  to  know  what 
has  been  done  or  not  done." 

"  That  might  be  useful,"  I  suggested. 

"  I  don't  see  it.  I  expect  my  cook  to  know  her 
work,  and  to  do  it  and  not  to  rely  on  me.  I've  other 
fish  to  fry." 

But  the  German  housewife  expects  to  have  her 
fingers  literally  in  every  pie  even  when  by  rights  they 
should  be  employed  elsewhere.  You  hear,  for  instance, 
of  a  great  Court  functionary  whose  wife  is  so  devoted 
to  cooking  that  though  she  has  a  large  staff  of  servants 


HOUSEWIVES  133 

she  cannot  be  persuaded  to  spend  the  day  anywhere 
but  in  her  kitchen.  Mistresses  of  this  kind  breed  incap- 
able servants,  and  you  find,  in  fact,  that  German  maids 
cannot  compare  with  our  English  ones  in  qualities 
of  self-reliance,  method,  and  initiative.  They  mostly 
expect  to  be  told  from  hour  to  hour  what  to  do,  and 
very  often  to  lend  a  hand  to  the  ladies  of  the  house- 
hold rather  than  to  do  the  thing  themselves.  Indeed, 
though  the  servants  are  on  duty  from  morning  till 
night  more  than  English  servants  are,  in  some  ways 
they  have  an  easier  time  of  it  than  ours,  because  they 
are  used  so  much  to  run  errands  and  go  to  market. 
Everyone  who  has  been  in  German  towns  can  remember 
the  hordes  of  servants  with  baskets  and  big  umbrellas 
strolling  in  twos  and  threes  along  the  streets  in  the 
early  morning.  They  are  never  in  any  hurry  to  get 
home  to  work  again,  and  a  good  many  doubtless  know 
that  what  they  leave  undone  will  be  done  by  their 
mistress.  The  German  kitchen  with  its  beautiful 
cleanliness  and  brightly  polished  copper  pans  I  have 
described,  but  I  have  not  said  anything  yet  about  the 
fidgety  housewife  who  carries  her  Tuchtigkeit  to  such  a 
pitch  that  she  ties  every  wooden  spoon  and  twirler  with 
a  coloured  ribbon  to  hang  by  against  the  wall.  In 
England  you  hear  of  ladies  who  tie  every  bottle  of 
scent  on  the  toilet  table  with  a  different  ribbon,  and 
that  really  has  more  sense  in  it,  because  it  must  be  try- 
ing to  a  cook's  nerves  to  use  spoons  tied  with  delicate 
ribbons  that  must  not  be  spoiled.  Every  housewife 
has  dainty  little  holders  for  the  handles  of  saucepans 
when  they  are  hot.  You  see  them,  all  different  shapes 
and  sizes,  on  view  with  the  piles  of  kitchen  cloths  and 
the  various  aprons  that  form  part  of  every  lady's 
trousseau,  and  if  you  have  German  friends  they 
probably  present  you  with  a  few  from  time  to  time. 


134  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

I  have  never  noticed  any  pictures  in  a  German 
kitchen,  but  there  are  nearly  always  Spriiche  both 
in  the  kitchen,  and  the  dining-room  and  sometimes 
in  the  hall :  rhyming  maxims  that  are  done  in  poker 
work  or  painted  on  wood  and  hung  in  conspicuous 
positions — 

"Wie  die  Kuche  so  das  Haus, 
Reinlich  drinnen,  reinlich  draus" 

is  a  nice  one ;  and  so  is 

"Trautes  Heim 
Gluck  allein." 

There  was  one  in  the  Lette-Haus  or  some  other  big 
institution  about  an  hour  in  the  morning  being  worth 
several  hours  later  in  the  day,  which  would  prick  our 
English  consciences  more  sharply  than  it  can  most 
German  ones,  for  they  are  a  nation  of  early  risers. 
Schools  and  offices  all  open  so  early  that  a  household 
must  of  necessity  be  up  betimes  to  feed  its  menfolk 
and  children  with  bread  and  coffee  before  their  day's 
work.  In  most  German  towns  the  tradespeople  do 
not  call  for  orders,  but  they  do  in  Hamburg ;  and  a 
friend  born  there  told  me  in  a  whisper,  so  that  her 
husband  should  not  hear  the  awful  confession,  that  she 
would  never  be  a  good  "  provider "  in  consequence. 
She  went  to  market  regularly,  for  many  housewives 
will  not  delegate  this  most  important  business  to  a 
cook,  but  she  had  not  the  same  eye  for  a  tough  goose 
or  a  poor  fish,  perhaps  not  the  same  backbone  for  a 
bargain,  as  a  housewife  used  from  childhood  to  these 
sorties.  In  some  towns  the  butcher  calls  over  night 
for  orders.  The  baker's  boy  brings  rolls  before  any- 
one is  up,  and  hangs  them  outside  the  flat  in  one  of 
two  bags  every  household  possesses.  After  the  early 


A   GERMAN   KITCHEN 


HOUSEWIVES  135 

breakfast  either  the  mistress  or  the  cook  fetches  what 
is  required  for  the  day. 

When  the  good  German  housewife  is  not  in  her 
kitchen,  English  tradition  believes  her  to  be  at  her 
linen  cupboard. 

"  I  am  going  to  write  a  humble  little  gossiping  book 
about  German  Home  Life,"  I  said  to  a  learned  but 
kindly  professor  last  spring. 

"  German  Home  Life,"  he  said,  rather  aghast  at  my 
daring,  for  we  had  only  just  made  each  other's  acquaint- 
ance, and  I  believe  he  thought  that  this  was  my  first 
Visit  to  Germany  and  that  I  had  been  there  a  week. 
"  It  is  a  wide  field,"  he  went  on.  "  However  ...  if 
you  want  to  understand  our  Home  Life  .  .  .  just  look 
at  that.  .  .  ." 

We  were  having  tea  together  in  the  dining-room  in  his 
wife's  absence,  and  he  suddenly  got  up  from  table  and 
threw  back  both  doors  of  an  immense  cupboard  occupy- 
ing the  longest  wall  in  the  room.  I  gazed  at  the  sight 
before  me,  and  my  thoughts  were  too  deep  for  words. 
It  was  a  small  household,  I  knew.  It  comprised,  in 
fact,  the  professor,  his  beautiful  young  wife,  and  one 
small  maid-servant;  and  for  their  happiness  they 
possessed  all  this  linen  :  shelf  upon  shelf,  pile  upon 
pile  of  linen,  exactly  ordered,  tied  with  lemon  coloured 
ribbons,  embroidered  beyond  doubt  with  the  initials  of 
the  lady  who  brought  it  here  as  a  bride.  The  lady, 
it  may  as  well  be  said,  is  a  celebrated  musician  who 
passes  a  great  part  of  each  winter  fulfilling  engagements 
away  from  home.  "  But  what  happens  to  the  linen 
cupboard  when  you  are  away  ?  "  I  asked  her,  later,  for 
it  was  grievous  to  think  of  any  servant,  even  a  "  pearl," 
making  hay  of  those  ordered  shelves.  "  I  come  home 
for  a  few  days  in  between  and  set  things  to  rights 
again,"  she  explained ;  and  then,  seeing  that  I  was 


136  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

interested,  she  admitted  that  she  had  put  up  and  made 
every  blind  and  curtain,  and  had  even  carpentered  and 
upholstered  an  empire  sofa  in  her  drawing-room.  She 
showed  me  each  cupboard  and  corner  of  the  flat,  and  I 
saw  everywhere  the  exquisite  order  and  spotlessness 
the  notable  German  housewife  knows  how  to  main- 
tain. We  even  peeped  into  the  professor's  dressing- 
'room. 

"  He  must  be  a  very  tidy  man,"  I  said,  sighing  and 
reflecting  that  he  could  not  be  as  other  men  are.  "  Do 
you  never  have  to  set  things  to  rights  here  ?  " 

"  Every  half  hour,"  she  said. 

These  enormous  quantities  of  linen  that  are  still  the 
housewife's  pride  used  to  be  necessary  when  house  and 
table  linen  were  only  washed  twice  a  year.  A  German 
friend  who  entertained  a  large  party  of  children  and 
grandchildren  every  week,  pointed  out  to  me  that  she 
used  eighteen  or  twenty  dinner  napkins  each  time  they 
came,  and  that  when  washing  day  arrived  at  the  end 
of  six  months  even  her  supply  was  nearly  exhausted. 
The  soiled  linen  was  stored  meanwhile  in  an  attic  at 
the  top  of  the  house.  The  wash  itself  and  the  drying 
and  ironing  all  took  place  up  there  with  the  help  of  a 
hired  laundress.  In  most  German  cities  this  custom  of 
washing  at  home  still  prevails,  but  in  these  days  it  is 
usually  done  once  a  month.  The  large  attics  that 
serve  as  laundries  are  engaged  for  certain  days  by  the 
families  living  in  the  house,  and  one  servant  assisted 
for  one  day  by  a  laundry  woman  washes  and  irons  all 
the  house  and  body  linen  used  by  her  employers  and 
herself  in  four  weeks.  It  sounds  impossible,  but  in 
Germany  nothing  involving  hard  work  is  impossible. 
All  the  differences  of  life  between  England  and  Germany, 
in  as  far  as  expenses  are  concerned,  seem  to  come  to 
this  in  the  end :  that  over  there  both  men  and  women 


HOUSEWIVES  137 

will  work  harder  for  less  money.  On  the  monthly 
washing  day  the  ladies  of  the  household  do  the  cook- 
ing and  housework,  and  on  the  following  day  they  help 
to  fold  the  clothes  and  iron  them. 

"  I  am  very  tired,"  confessed  a  little  maid-servant 
who  had  been  sent  out  at  night  to  show  me  where  to 
find  a  tram.  "  We  got  up  at  four  o'clock  this  morning, 
and  have  been  ironing  all  day.  My  mistress  gets  up 
as  early,  and  works  as  hard  as  I  do.  She  is  very 
tuchtig,  and  where  there  are  four  children  and  only  one 
servant  there  is  a  good  deal  to  do." 

Yet  her  mistress  had  asked  me  to  supper,  I  reflected, 
and  everything  had  been  to  time  and  well  cooked  and 
served.  The  rooms  had  looked  as  neat  and  orderly  as 
usual.  The  Hausfrau  had  entertained  me  as  pleasantly 
as  if  she  had  no  reason  to  feel  tired.  We  had  talked 
of  English  novels,  and  of  the  invasion  of  England  by 
Germany ;  for  her  husband  was  a  soldier,  and  another 
guest  present  was  a  soldier  too.  The  men  had  talked 
seriously,  for  they  were  as  angry  with  certain  English 
newspapers  as  we  are  over  here  with  certain  German 
ones.  But  the  Hausfrau  and  I  had  laughed. 

"  When  they  come,  I'm  coming  with  them,"  she  said, 

"  We  will  receive  you  with  open  arms,"  said  I. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
SERVANTS 

r  I  ^HE  first  thing  that  English  people  notice  about 
A  German  servants  is,  that  they  are  allowed  to 
dress  anyhow,  and  that  the  results  are  most  unpleasing. 
In  Hamburg,  the  city  that  gives  you  ox-tail  soup  for 
dinner  and  has  sirloins  of  beef  much  like  English  sirloins, 
the  maids  used  to  wear  clean  crackling,  light  print  gowns 
with  elbow  sleeves.  This  was  their  full  dress  in  which 
they  waited  at  table,  and  fresh  looking  country  girls 
from  Holstein  and  thereabouts  looked  very  well  in  it. 
This  costume  is  being  superseded  in  Hamburg  to-day 
by  the  English  livery  of  a  black  frock  with  a  white  cap 
and  apron.  But  in  other  German  cities,  in  the  ordinary 
middle-class  household,  the  servants  wear  what  they 
choose  on  all  occasions.  In  most  places  they  are  as 
fond  of  plaids  as  their  betters,  and  in  a  house  where 
everything  else  is  methodical  and  well  arranged,  you 
will  find  the  dishes  plumped  on  the  table  by  a  young 
woman  wearing  a  tartan  blouse  decidedly  decollete'e,  and 
ornamented  with  a  large  cheap  lace  collar.  I  have 
dined  with  people  whose  silver,  glass,  and  food  were  all 
luxurious ;  while  the  girl  who  waited  on  us  wore  a  red 
and  white  checked  blouse,  a  plaid  neck-tie  with  floating 
ends,  and  an  enormous  brooch  of  sham  diamonds.  In 
South  Germany  the  servants  wear  a  great  deal  of  indigo 

blue :  stuff  skirts  of  plain  blue  woollen,  with   blouses 

138 


SERVANTS  139 

and  aprons  of  blue  cotton  that  has  a  small  white 
pattern  on  it.  Seme  ladies  keep  smart  white  aprons 
to  lend  their  servants  on  state  occasions,  but  the  laciest 
apron  will  not  do  much  for  a  girl  in  a  sloppy  coloured 
blouse  with  a  plaid  neck-tie.  But  these  same  girls  who 
look  such  slovens  usually  have  stores  of  tidy  well-made 
body  linen  and  knitted  stockings.  In  England  a  ser- 
vant of  the  better  class  will  not  be  seen  out  of  doors  in 
her  working-dress.  "  In  London,"  says  the  Idealist  in 
her  Memoirs,  "  no  woman  of  the  people,  no  servant-girl 
will  stir  a  step  from  the  house  without  a  hat  on  her 
head,  and  this  is  one  of  the  ugliest  of  English  prejudices. 
While  the  clean  white  cap  worn  by  a  French  maid  looks 
pretty  and  suitable,  the  Englishwoman's  hat  which 
makes  her  "  respectable "  is  odious,  for  it  is  usually 
dirty,  out  of  shape,  and  trimmed  with  faded  flowers 
and  ribbons."  It  gives  me  pleasure  to  quote  this  criticism 
made  by  an  observant  German  on  our  English  servants, 
partly  because  it  is  true,  and  it  is  good  for  us  to  hear 
it,  and  partly  because  it  encourages  me  to  continue 
my  criticism  of  German  as  compared  with  English 
servants.  For  it  ought  to  be  possible  to  criticise 
without  giving  offence.  The  Idealist  has  a  very  poor 
opinion  of  English  lodging-house  bedrooms  and  lodging- 
house  keepers,  and  she  states  her  opinion  quite  plainly, 
but  I  cannot  imagine  that  anyone  in  this  country 
would  be  hurt  by  what  she  says.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  amusing  to  find  the  ills  from  which  most  of  us 
have  suffered  at  times  recognised  by  the  stranger 
within  our  gates.  None  of  us  admire  the  battered 
tawdry  finery  we  see  in  our  streets  every  day,  and  I 
cannot  believe  that  German  ladies  admire  the  shock- 
ing garments  in  which  their  servants  will  come  to  the 
door  and  wait  at  table.  But  though  these  clothes  are 
sloppy  looking  and  unsuitable,  they  are  never  ragged ; 


I4o  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

and  the  girl  who  puts  on  an  impossible  tie  and  blouse 
will  also  wear  an  impeccable  long  white  apron  with  an 
embroidered  monogram  you  can  see  across  the  room. 
In  most  towns  servants  go  shopping  or  to  market  with 
a  large  basket  and  an  umbrella.  They  do  not  consider 
a  hat  or  a  stuff  gown  necessary,  for  they  are  not  in  the 
least  ashamed  of  being  servants.  Some  years  ago  they 
made  no  attempt  to  dress  like  ladies  when  they  went 
out  for  themselves,  and  even  now  what  they  do  in  this 
way  is  a  trifle  compared  to  the  extravagant  get-up  of 
an  English  cook  or  parlour-maid  on  a  Sunday  afternoon. 
A  German  girl  in  service  is  always  saving  with  might 
and  main  to  buy  her  Aussteuer,  and  as  she  gets  very 
low  wages  it  takes  her  a  long  time.  She  needs  about 
£30,  so  husbands  are  not  expensive  in  Germany  in 
that  class.  German  servants  get  less  wages  than  ours, 
and  work  longer  hours.  Speaking  out  of  my  own 
experience,  I  should  say  that  they  were  indefatigable, 
amiable,  and  inefficient.  They  will  do  anything  in  the 
world  for  you,  but  they  will  not  do  their  own  work  in 
a  methodical  way.  A  lady  whose  uncle  at  one  time 
occupied  an  important  diplomatic  post  in  London,  told 
me  that  her  aunt  was  immensely  surprised  to  find  that 
every  one  of  her  English  servants  knew  his  or  her  work 
and  did  it  without  supervision,  but  that  none  of  them 
would  do  anything  else.  The  German  lady,  not  know- 
ing English  ways,  used  to  make  the  mistake  at  first  of 
asking  a  servant  to  do  what  she  wanted  done  instead 
of  what  the  servant  had  engaged  to  do ;  but  she  soon 
found  that  the  first  housemaid  would  rather  leave  than 
fill  a  matchbox  it  was  the  second  housemaid's  "  place  " 
to  fill ;  and  what  surprised  her  most  was  to  find  that 
her  English  friends  sympathised  with  the  housemaids 
and  not  with  her.  "  We  believe  in  everyone  minding 
his  own  business,"  they  said. 


SERVANTS  141 

"  We  believe  that  it  is  the  servant's  business  to  do 
what  his  employer  wants,"  says  the  German. 

"  You  must  tell  him  what  you  want  when  you  engage 
him,"  you  say.  "  Then  he  can  take  your  place  or 
leave  it." 

"  But  that  is  impossible  .  .  .  Unsinn  .  .  .  Quatsch 
.  .  ."  says  the  German  indignantly.  "  How  can  I  tell 
what  I  shall  want  my  servant  to  do  three  months  hence 
on  a  Monday  morning.  Das  hat  keinen  Zweck? 

"  I  know  exactly  what  each  one  of  my  servants  will 
do  three  months  hence  on  a  Monday  morning,"  you 
say.  "  It  is  quite  easy.  You  plan  it  all  out.  .  .  ." 

But  you  will  never  agree.  The  German  has  his  or 
rather  her  own  methods,  and  you  will  always  think 
her  unmethodical  but  thrifty  and  knowledgable,  and 
she  will  always  think  you  extravagant  and  ignorant, 
but  "  chic,"  and  on  these  terms  you  may  be  quite 
good  friends.  In  most  German  households  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  the  strict  division  of  labour  insisted 
on  here.  Your  cook  will  be  delighted  to  make  a 
blouse  for  you,  and  your  nurse  will  turn  out  the 
dining-room,  and  your  chambermaid  will  take  the 
child  for  an  airing.  They  are  more  human  in  their 
relation  to  their  employers.  The  English  servant  fixes 
a  gulf  between  herself  and  the  most  democratic 
mistress.  The  German  servant  brings  her  intimate 
joys  and  sorrows  to  a  good  Herrschaft,  and  expects 
their  sympathy.  When  a  girl  has  bad  luck  and 
engages  with  a  bad  Herrschaft  she  is  worse  off  than 
in  England,  partly  because  when  German  housekeeping 
is  mean  it  sounds  depths  of  meanness  not  unknown, 
but  extremely  rare  here ;  and  also  because  a  German 
servant  is  more  in  the  power  of  her  employers  and  of 
the  police  than  an  English  one.  Anyone  who  has 
read  Klara  Viebig's  remarkable  novel,  Das  Tagliche 


I42  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

Brod  (a  story  of  servant  life  in  Berlin)  will  remember 
the  mistress  who  kept  every  bit  of  dainty  food  under 
lock   and  key,  and  fed  the  kitchen  on  soup-meat  all 
the  year  round.     The  chambermaid  gives  way  in   a 
moment   of  hunger   and  temptation,  manages    to  get 
the  key,  and  is  discovered  by  the  worthless  son  of  the 
house  stealing  cakes.      He  threatens  her  with  exposure 
if  she  will  not  listen  to  his  love-making.     Even  if  there 
was  no  son  and  no  love-making,  a  girl  who  once  steals 
cakes  in  Germany  may  go  from  place  to  place  branded 
as   a   thief.       Because   every    servant   has    to    have   a 
Dienstbuch)  which  is  under  the  control  of  the  police, 
and   has  to  be   shown  to  them   whenever  she   leaves 
her  situation.     There  is  no  give  and  take  of  personal 
character  in  Germany.     Ladies  do  not  see  the  last  lady 
with  whom  a  girl  has  lived.     They  advertise  or  they 
go  to  a  registry  office  where  servants  are  waiting  to 
be  engaged.     In  Berlin  every  third  house  seems  to  be 
a  registry  office,  and  you  hear  as  many  complaints  of 
the  people  who  keep  them  as  you  hear  here.     So  the 
government    has   set    up   a   large   Public   Registry   in 
Charlottenberg,  where  both   sides  can   get  what  they 
want  without  paying  fees.      But  servants  are  not  as 
scarce  in  Germany  yet  as  they  are  here  and  in  America. 
German  ladies  tell  you  they  are  scarce,  but  it  is  only 
true  in  comparison  with  a  former  state  of  things.      In 
comparison  with  London,  servants  are  still  plentiful  in 
Germany.      When  a  lady  finds  a  likely  looking  girl 
at  an  office,  she  either  engages   her   at  once  on  the 
strength  of  the  good  character  in  her  Dienstbuch,  or, 
if  she  is  very  particular,  she  takes  her  home  and  dis- 
cusses things  with  her  there.     The  engagement  is  not 
completed  until   the   lady  has   filled  in  several  forms 
for   police  inspection;    while  the  servant  has  to  take 
her  Dienstbuch  to  the  police   station  both   when  she 


SERVANTS  143 

leaves  and  when  she  enters  a  situation.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say  that  when  a  girl  does  anything 
seriously  bad,  and  her  employers  record  it  in  the 
book,  the  book  gets  "  lost."  Then  the  police  interfere 
and  make  things  extremely  disagreeable  for  the  girl.  A 
friend  told  me  that  in  the  confusion  of  a  removal  her 
own  highly  valued  servant  lost  her  Dienstbuch,  or 
rather  my  friend  lost  it,  for  employers  usually  keep  it 
while  a  girl  is  in  their  service;  and  though  she  took 
the  blame  on  herself,  and  explained  that  the  book  was 
lost,  the  police  were  most  offensive  about  it.  In  the 
end  the  book  was  found,  so  I  am  not  in  a  position 
to  say  what  penalties  my  friend  and  her  maid  would 
have  incurred  if  they  had  never  been  able  to  produce 
it.  But  Germans  have  often  told  me  that  servants  as 
a  class  have  real  good  reason  to  complain  of  police 
insolence  and  brutality.  Here  is  an  entry  from  a 
German  servant's  Dienstbuch,  with  nothing  altered  but 
the  names.  On  the  first  page  you  found  the  following 
particulars : — 


GESINDE-DIENSTBUCH 


FUr 

Aus 
Alt 
Statur 
Augen 


Anna  Schmidt. 

Rheinbeck. 

Geb.  20  Juni  1885. 

Schlank.  • 

Grau. 


Nase  'k 

Mundj'  •  •  '          Gewohnlich. 

Haare    ....         Dunkelblond. 
Besondere  Merkmale     , 


Official  stamp. 


(^Official  signature  of 


144  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

Then  came  the  record  of  her  previous  situations 


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SERVANTS  145 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  characters  given  tell  nothing 
about  a  servant's  qualities  and  knowledge  ;  while  the 
vague  complaint  that  Anna  Schmidt's  behaviour  no 
longer  suited  her  mistress  might  mean  anything  or 
nothing.  In  this  case  it  meant  that  a  son  of  the 
house  had  annoyed  the  girl  with  his  attentions,  and 
she  had  in  consequence  treated  him  with  some  brus- 
querie.  But  ten  minutes'  talk  with  a  lady  who  knows 
the  best  and  the  worst  of  a  servant  is  worth  any  Dienst- 
buch  in  Germany.  And  when  English  servants  write 
to  the  Times  and  ask  to  have  the  same  system  here,  I 
always  wonder  how  they  would  like  their  failings  sent 
with  them  from  place  to  place  in  black  and  white ;  every 
fresh  start  made  difficult,  and  every  bad  trait  recorded 
against  them  as  long  as  they  earn  their  daily  bread. 

Wages  are  much  lower  in  Germany  than  here. 
Some  years  ago  you  could  get  a  good  cook  for  from 
£7  to  £12,  but  those  days  are  past.  Now  you  hear 
of  a  general  servant  getting  from  £10  to  £12,  and 
a  good  plain  cook  from  £1$  upwards.  These  are 
servants  who  would  get  from  £22  to  £30  in  England, 
and  more  in  America.  But  the  wages  of  German 
servants  are  supplemented  at  Christmas  by  a  system 
of  tips  and  presents  that  has  in  course  of  time  become 
extortionate.  Germans  groan  under  it,  but  every 
nation  knows  how  hard  it  is  to  depart  from  one  of 
these  traditional  indefinite  customs.  The  system  is 
hateful,  because  it  is  neither  one  of  free  gift  nor  of 
business-like  payment,  but  hovers  somewhere  between 
and  gives  rise  to  much  friction  and  discontent.  In  a 
household  account  book  that  a  friend  allowed  me  to 
see  I  found  the  following  entry.  "  Christmas  present 
for  the  servant.  30  marks  in  money.  Bed  linen,  9.50. 
Pincushion,  1.5.  Five  small  presents.  In  all  42  marks. 
Was  not  contented?  This  was  a  general  servant  in  a 
10 


146  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

family  of  two  occupying  a  good  social  position,  but 
living  as  so  many  Germans  do  on  a  small  income.  But 
then  the  servant's  wages  for  doing  the  work  of  a  large 
well-furnished,  well-kept  flat  was  £14,  and  these  same 
friends  told  me  that  servants  now  expect  to  get  a 
quarter  of  their  wages  in  money  and  presents  at 
Christmas.  A  German  servant  gets  a  great  deal 
more  help  from  her  mistress,  and  is  more  directly 
under  her  superintendence,  than  she  would  be  in  a 
household  of  the  same  social  standing  in  this  country. 
I  have  heard  an  English  lady  say  that  when  she  had 
asked  people  to  dinner  she  made  it  a  rule  to  go  out 
all  day,  because  if  she  did  not  her  servants  worried 
her  with  questions  about  extra  silver  and  other  tire- 
some details.  All  the  notable  housewives  in  England 
will  say  that  this  lady  was  a  "  freak,"  and  must  not 
be  held  up  to  the  world  as  an  English  type.  But  I 
think  there  is  something  of  her  spirit  in  many  English- 
women. They  engage  their  servants  to  do  certain 
work,  and  hold  them  responsible.  The  German  holds 
herself  responsible  for  every  event  and  every  corner  in 
her  husband's  house,  and  she  never  for  a  moment 
closes  her  eyes  and  lets  go  the  reins.  The  servants 
are  used  to  working  hand  in  hand  with  the  ladies  of 
the  household,  and  do  not  regard  the  kitchen  as  a 
department  belonging  exclusively  to  themselves  after 
an  early  hour  in  the  morning. 

"  Why  did  you  leave  your  last  place  ?  "  you  say  to 
an  English  cook  applying  for  yours. 

"  Because  the  lady  was  always  in  the  kitchen,"  she 
replies  quite  soberly  and  civilly.  "  I  don't  like  to  see 
ladies  in  my  kitchen  at  all  hours  of  the  day.  It  is 
impossible  to  get  on  with  the  work." 

But  in  Germany  the  kitchen  is  not  the  cook's  kitchen. 
It  belongs  to  the  people  who  maintain  it,  and  they 


SERVANTS  147 

enter  it  when  they  please.  It  is  always  so  spick  and 
span  that  you  sigh  as  you  see  it,  because  you  think  of 
your  own  kitchen  at  home  with  its  black  pans  and 
unpleasant  looking  sink.  There  are  no  black  pans  in  a 
German  kitchen ;  you  never  see  any  grease,  and  you 
never  by  any  chance  see  a  teacloth  or  a  duster  with  a 
hole  in  it.  An  English  kitchen  in  a  small  household 
is  furnished  with  more  regard  to  the  comfort  of  the 
servants  than  a  German  one,  and  with  less  concern  for 
the  work  to  be  done  there.  We  supply  comfortable 
chairs,  a  coloured  table-cloth,  oil-cloth,  books,  hearth- 
rug, pictures,  cushions,  inkstand,  and  a  roaring  fire. 
The  German  kitchen  lacks  all  these  things.  It  does 
not  look  as  if  the  women  who  live  in  it  ever  expected 
to  pursue  their  own  business,  or  rest  for  an  hour  in  an 
easy  chair.  But  the  shining  brightness  of  it  rejoices 
you, — every  vessel  is  of  wood,  earthenware,  enamel,  or 
highly  polished  metal,  and  every  one  of  them  is  scrupul- 
ously clean.  The  groceries  and  pudding  stuffs  are 
kept  in  fascinating  jars  and  barrels,  like  those  that 
come  to  children  at  Christmas  in  toy  kitchens  made  in 
Germany.  The  stove  is  a  clean,  low  hot  table  at  which 
you  can  stand  all  day  without  getting  black  and  greasy. 
In  this  sensible  spotless  workshop  a  German  servant 
expects  to  be  busy  from  morning  till  night.  Neither 
for  herself  nor  for  her  fellow-servants  will  she  ever  set 
a  table  for  a  tidy  kitchen  meal.  She  eats  anywhere 
and  anywhen,  as  the  fancy  takes  her  and  the  exigencies 
of  the  day  permit.  Her  morning  meal  will  consist  of 
coffee  and  rye  bread  without  butter.  In  the  middle  of 
the  morning  she  will  have  a  second  breakfast,  rye 
bread  again  with  cheese  or  sausage.  In  a  liberal 
household  she  will  dine  as  the  family  dines  ;  in  a  stingy 
one  she  will  fare  worse  than  they.  In  an  old-fashioned 
household  her  portion  will  be  carved  for  her  in  the 


1 48  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

dining-room,  because  the  joint  will  not  return  to  the 
kitchen  when  the  family  has  done  with  it,  but  be  placed 
straightway  in  the  Speiseschrank  under  lock  and  key. 
In  the  afternoon  she  will  have  bread  and  coffee  again, 
and  for  supper  as  a  rule  what  the  family  has,  sausage 
or  ham  or  some  dish  made  with  eggs.  One  friend 
who  goes  out  so  much  with  her  husband  that  they  are 
rarely  at  home  to  supper,  told  me  that  she  made  her 
servant  a  monthly  allowance  to  buy  what  she  liked  for 
supper.  German  servants  are  allowed  coffee  and 
either  beer  or  wine,  but  they  are  never  given  tea. 
Except  for  the  scarcity  of  butter  in  middle-class  house- 
holds, they  live  very  well. 

They  go  out  on  errands  and  to  market  a  great  deal, 
but  they  do  not  go  out  as  much  for  themselves  as  our 
servants  do.  A  few  hours  every  other  Sunday  still 
contents  them  in  most  places.  Their  favourite  amuse- 
ment is  the  cheap  public  ball,  and  the  careful  German 
householder  is  actually  in  the  habit  of  trusting  the  key 
of  the  flat  to  his  maid-of-all-work,  and  allowing  her  to 
return  at  any  hour  of  the  night  she  pleases.  This  at 
any  rate  is  the  custom  in  Berlin  and  some  other  large 
German  towns,  and  the  evil  results  of  such  a  system 
are  manifold.  Over  and  over  again  burglaries  have 
been  traced  to  it.  One  beguiling  man  engages  your 
maid  to  dance  and  sup  with  him,  while  his  confederate 
gets  hold  of  her  key  and  comfortably  rifles  your  rooms. 
On  the  girls  themselves  these  entertainments  are  said 
to  have  the  worst  possible  influence,  and  most  sensible 
Germans  would  put  a  stop  to  them  if  they  could. 

You  must  not  expect  in  Germany  to  have  hot  water 
brought  to  you  at  regular  intervals  as  you  do  in  every 
orderly  English  household.  The  Germans  have  a 
curious  notion  that  English  life  is  quite  uniform,  and 
all  English  people  exactly  alike.  One  man,  a  notably 


SERVANTS  149 

wise  man  too,  said  to  me  that  if  he  knew  one  English 
family  he  knew  ten  thousand.  Another  German  told 
me  that  this  account  of  German  life  would  be  impossible 
to  write,  because  one  part  of  Germany  differed  from 
the  other  part ;  but  that  a  German  could  easily  write 
the  same  kind  of  book  about  England,  because  from 
Land's  End  to  John  o'  Groats  we  were  so  many  peas 
in  a  pod.  To  us  who  live  in  England  and  know  the 
differences  between  the  Cornish  and  the  Yorkshire 
people,  for  instance,  or  the  Welsh  and  the  East 
Anglians,  this  seems  sheer  nonsense.  I  have  tried  to 
understand  how  Germans  arrive  at  it,  and  I  believe  it 
is  by  way  of  our  cans  of  hot  water  brought  at  regular 
intervals  every  day  in  the  year  in  every  British  house- 
hold. I  remember  that  their  machine-like  precision 
impressed  M.  Taine  when  he  was  in  England,  and 
certainly  miss  them  sadly  while  we  are  abroad.  Gret- 
chen  brings  you  no  hot  water  unless  you  ask  for  it; 
but  she  will  brush  your  clothes  as  a  matter  of  course, 
though  she  does  all  the  work  of  the  household.  She 
will,  however,  be  hurt  and  surprised  if  you  do  not  press 
a  small  coin  into  her  hand  at  the  end  of  each  week, 
and  one  or  two  big  ones  at  parting.  One  friend  told 
me  that  when  she  stayed  with  her  family  at  a  German 
hotel  her  German  relatives  told  her  she  should  give  the 
chambermaid  a  tip  that  was  equal  to  20  pf.  for  each 
pair  of  boots  cleaned  during  their  stay.  It  seems  an 
odd  way  of  reckoning,  because  the  chambermaid  does 
not  clean  boots.  However,  the  tip  came  to  £3,  which 
seems  a  good  deal  and  helps  to  explain  the  ease  with 
which  German  servants  save  enough  for  their  marriage 
outfit  on  small  wages.  It  is  usual  also  to  tip  the 
servant  where  you  have  supped  or  dined.  Your 
opportunity  probably  comes  when  she  precedes  you 
down  the  unlighted  stairs  with  a  lantern  or  a  candle  to 


150  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

the  house  door.  But  you  need  not  be  at  all  delicate 
about  your  opportunity.  You  see  the  other  guests 
make  little  offerings,  and  you  can  only  feel  that  the 
money  has  been  well  earned  when  you  have  eaten  the 
elaborate  meal  she  has  helped  to  cook,  and  has  after- 
wards served  to  you. 

Domestic  servants  come  under  the  law  in  Germany 
that  obliges  all  persons  below  a  certain  income  to 
provide  for  their  old  age.  The  Post  Office  issues  cards 
and  20  pf.  stamps,  and  one  of  these  stamps  must  be 
dated  and  affixed  to  the  card  every  Monday.  Some- 
times the  employers  buy  the  cards  and  stamps,  and 
show  them  at  the  Post  Office  once  a  month  ;  sometimes 
they  expect  the  servant  to  pay  half  the  money  required. 
Women  who  go  out  by  the  day  to  different  families 
get  their  stamps  at  the  house  they  work  in  on  Mondays. 
If  a  girl  marries  she  may  cease  to  insure,  and  may 
have  a  sum  of  money  towards  her  outfit.  In  that  case 
she  will  receive  no  Old  Age  Pension.  But  if  she  goes 
on  with  her  insurance  she  will  have  from  15  to  20 
marks  a  month  from  the  State  after  the  age  of  70. 
In  cases  of  illness,  employers  are  legally  bound  to 
provide  for  their  domestic  servants  during  the  term  of 
notice  agreed  on.  At  least  this  is  so  in  Prussia,  and 
the  term  varies  from  a  fortnight  to  three  months.  In 
some  parts  of  Germany  servants  are  still  engaged  by 
the  quarter,  but  in  Berlin  it  has  become  unusual  of  late 
years.  The  obligation  to  provide  for  illness  is  often  a 
heavy  tax  on  employers,  especially  in  cases  when  the 
illness  has  not  been  caused  by  the  work  or  the  circum- 
stances of  the  situation,  but  by  the  servant's  own 
carelessness  and  folly.  Most  householders  in  Berlin 
subscribe  7.50  a  year  to  an  insurance  company,  a 
private  undertaking  that  provides  medical  help,  and 
when  necessary  sends  the  invalided  servant  to  a. 


SERVANTS  1 5  i 

hospital   and   maintains  her   there.     It  even  pays  for 
any  special  food  or  wine  ordered  by  its  own  doctor. 

One  cause  of  ill  health  amongst  German  servants 
must  often  be  the  abominable  sleeping  accommodation 
provided  for  them  in  old-fashioned  houses.  It  is  said 
that  rooms  without  windows  opening  to  the  air  are  no 
longer  allowed  in  Germany,  and  there  may  be  a  police 
regulation  against  them.  Even  this  cannot  have  been 
issued  everywhere,  for  not  long  ago  I  had  a  large  well 
furnished  room  of  this  kind  offered  me  in  a  crowded 
hotel.  It  had  windows,  but  they  opened  on  to  a 
narrow  corridor.  The  proprietor  was  quite  surprised 
when  I  said  I  would  rather  have  a  room  at  the  top  of 
the  house  with  a  window  facing  the  street.  I  know  a 
young  lady  acting  as  Stutze  der  Hausfrau  who  slept 
in  a  cupboard  for  years,  the  only  light  and  air  reaching 
her  coming  from  a  slit  of  glass  over  the  door.  I 
remember  the  consumptive  looking  daughter  of  a 
prosperous  tradesman  showing  us  some  rooms  her 
father  wished  to  let,  and  suggesting  that  a  cupboard 
off  a  sitting-room  would  make  a  pleasant  study. 
She  said  she  slept  in  one  just  like  it  on  a  higher 
floor.  Of  course  she  called  it  a  Kammer  and  not  a 
cupboard,  but  that  did  not  make  it  more  inviting. 
Over  and  over  again  I  have  known  servants  stowed 
away  in  holes  that  seemed  fit  for  brooms  and 
brushes,  but  not  for  creatures  with  lungs  and  easily 
poisoned  blood.  This  is  one  of  the  facts  of  German 
life  that  makes  comparison  between  England  and 
Germany  so  difficult  and  bewildering.  Everyone 
knowing  both  countries  is  struck  by  the  amount  of 
State  and  police  surveillance  and  interference  the 
Germans  enjoy  compared  with  us.  I  do  not  say 
"  endure,"  because  Germans  would  not  like  it.  Most 
of  them  approve  of  the  rule  they  are  used  to,  and  they 


152  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

tell  us  we  live  in  a  horrid  go-as-you-please  fashion 
with  the  worst  results.  I  suppose  we  do.  But  I  have 
never  known  an  English  servant  put  to  sleep  in  a 
cupboard,  though  I  have  heard  complaints  of  damp 
fireless  rooms,  especially  in  old  historical  palaces  and 
houses.  And  I  have  never  been  offered  a  room  in  a 
good  English  inn  that  had  no  windows  to  the  open  air. 
These  windowless  rooms  may  be  forbidden  as  bedrooms 
by  the  German  police,  but  it  would  take  a  bigger 
earthquake  than  the  empire  is  likely  to  sustain  to  do 
away  with  those  still  in  use. 


CHAPTER  XV 
FOOD 

A  LTHOUGH  the  Germans  as  a  nation  are  large 
JL\.  eaters,  they  begin  their  day  with  the  usual  light 
continental  breakfast  of  coffee  and  rolls.  In  house- 
holds where  economy  is  practised  it  is  still  customary 
to  do  without  butter,  or  at  any  rate  to  provide  it  only 
for  the  master  of  the  house  and  for  visitors.  In 
addition  to  rolls  and  butter,  you  may,  if  you  are  a  man 
or  a  guest,  have  two  small  boiled  eggs ;  but  eggs  in  a 
German  town  are  apt  to  remind  you  of  the  Viennese 
waiter  who  assured  a  complaining  customer  that  their 
eggs  were  all  stamped  with  the  day,  month,  and  year. 
Home-made  plum  jam  made  with  very  little  sugar  is 
often  eaten  instead  of  butter  by  the  women  of  the 
family ;  and  the  servants,  where  white  rolls  are 
regarded  as  a  luxury,  have  rye  bread.  No  one  need 
pity  them  on  this  account,  however,  as  German  rye 
bread  is  as  good  as  bread  can  be.  Ordinary  London 
household  bread  is  poor  stuff  in  comparison  with  it. 
The  white  rolls  and  butter  are  always  excellent  too, 
and  I  would  even  say  a  good  word  for  the  coffee.  To 
be  sure,  Mark  Twain  makes  fun  of  German  coffee 
in  the  Tramp  Abroad-,  says  something  about  one 
chicory  berry  being  used  to  a  barrel  of  water;  but 
the  poorest  German  coffee  is  better  than  the  tepid 

muddy  mixture  you  get  at  all  English  railway  stations, 

153 


154  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

and  at  most  English  hotels  and  private  houses.  Milk 
is  nearly  always  poor  in  Germany,  but  whipped  cream 
is  often  added  to  either  coffee  or  chocolate. 

The  precision  that  is  so  striking  in  the  arrangement 
of  German  rooms  is  generally  lacking  altogether  in  the 
serving  of  meals.  The  family  does  not  assemble  in 
the  morning  at  a  table  laid  as  in  England  with  the 
same  care  for  breakfast  as  it  will  be  at  night  for 
dinner.  It  dribbles  in  as  it  pleases,  arrayed  as  it 
pleases,  drinks  a  cup  of  coffee,  eats  a  roll  and  departs 
about  its  business.  Formerly  the  women  of  the 
family  always  spent  the  morning  in  a  loose  gown,  and 
wore  a  cap  over  their  undressed  hair.  This  fashion, 
Germans  inform  you,  is  falling  into  desuetude;  but 
it  falls  slowly.  Take  an  elderly  German  lady  by 
surprise  in  the  morning,  and  you  will  still  find  her  in 
what  fashion  journals  call  a  negligt,  and  what  plain 
folk  call  a  wrapper.  When  it  is  of  shepherd's  plaid  or 
snuff-coloured  wool  it  is  not  an  attractive  garment, 
and  it  is  always  what  the  last  generation  but  one,  with 
their  blunt  tongues,  called  "  slummocking."  Most 
German  women  are  busy  in  the  house  all  the  morning, 
and  when  they  are  not  going  to  market  they  like  to 
get  through  their  work  in  this  form  of  dress  and  make 
themselves  trim  for  the  day  later.  The  advantage 
claimed  for  the  plan  is  one  of  economy.  The  tidy 
costume  worn  later  in  the  day  is  saved  considerable 
wear  and  tear.  The  obvious  disadvantage  is  the 
encouragement  it  offers  to  the  sloven.  In  England 
whatever  you  are  by  nature  you  must  in  an  ordinary 
household  be  down  to  breakfast  at  a  fixed  hour, 
presentably  dressed ;  at  any  rate,  with  your  hair  done 
for  the  day,  and,  it  is  to  be  supposed,  with  your  bath 
accomplished.  Directly  you  depart  from  this  you 
open  the  door  to  anything  in  the  dressing-gown  and 


FOOD  1 5  5 

slipper  way,  to  lying  abed  like  a  sluggard,  and  to  a 
waste  of  your  own  and  the  servants'  time  that  under- 
mines the  whole  welfare  of  a  home.  At  least,  this 
is  how  the  question  presents  itself  to  English  eyes. 
Meanwhile  the  continent  continues  to  drink  its' coffee 
attired  in  dressing-gowns,  and  to  survive  quite  comfort- 
ably. In  every  trousseau  you  still  see  some  of  these 
confections,  and  on  the  stage  the  young  wife  who  has 
to  cajole  her  husband  in  the  coming  scene  usually 
appears  in  a  coquettish  one.  But  then  it  will  not  be 
made  of  shepherd's  plaid  or  snuff-coloured  wool. 

The  dinner  hour  varies  so  much  in  Germany  that  it 
is  impossible  to  fix  an  hour  for  it.  In  country  places 
you  will  find  everyone  sitting  down  at  midday,  in 
towns  one  o'clock  is  usual,  in  Hamburg  five  is  the 
popular  hour,  in  Berlin  you  may  be  invited  anywhen. 
But  unless  people  dine  at  twelve  they  have  some  kind 
of  second  breakfast,  and  this  meal  may  correspond  with 
the  French  dejeuner,  or  it  may  be  even  more  informal 
than  the  morning  coffee.  It  consists  in  many  places 
of  a  roll  or  slice  of  bread  with  or  without  a  shaving  of 
meat  or  sausage.  Servants  have  it,  children  take  it  to 
school,  charitable  institutions  supply  the  bread  without 
the  meat  to  their  inmates.  In  South  Germany  all  the 
men  and  many  women  drink  beer  or  wine  with  this 
light  meal,  but  in  Prussia  most  people  are  content  with 
a  belegtes  Butterbrod,  a  roll  cut  in  two,  buttered,  and 
spread  with  meat  or  sausage  or  smoked  fish.  This 
carries  people  on  till  one  or  two  o'clock,  when  the 
chief  meal  of  the  day  is  served. 

All  over  Germany  dinner  begins  with  soup,  and  in 
most  parts  the  soup  is  followed  by  the  Ochsenfleisch 
that  made  it.  At  least  Ochsenfleisch  should  make  it  by 
rights. 

"  I  know  what  this  is,"  said  an  old  German  friend. 


156  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

prodding  at  a  tough  slice  from  a  dish  we  all  found 
uneatable.  "  This  is  not  Ochsenfleisch  at  all.  This  is 
cow? 

Good  gravy  or  horseradish  sauce  is  served  with  it, 
whether  it  is  ox  or  cow,  and  for  a  time  you  take  a  slice 
day  after  day  without  complaining.  It  is  the  per- 
sistence of  the  thing  that  wears  you  out  in  the  end. 
You  must  be  born  to  Ochsenfleisch  to  eat  it  year  in  and 
year  out  as  if  it  was  bread  or  potatoes.  It  does  not 
appear  as  regularly  in  North  as  in  South  Germany ; 
and  in  Hamburg  you  may  once  in  a  way  have  dinner 
without  soup.  People  who  know  Germany  find  this 
almost  beyond  belief,  but  Hamburg  has  many  little 
ways  of  its  own,  and  is  a  city  with  a  strong  individual 
character.  It  is  extremely  proud  of  its  cooking  and 
its  food,  and  it  has  every  right  to  be.  I  once  travelled 
with  two  Germans  who  in  a  heated  way  discussed  the 
comparative  merits  of  various  German  cities.  They 
could  not  agree,  and  they  could  not  let  the  matter  drop. 
At  last  one  man  got  the  best  of  it.  "  I  tell  you  that 
Hamburg  is  the  finest  city  in  Germany,"  he  said.  "  In 
a  Hamburg  hotel  I  once  ate  the  best  steak  I  ever  ate 
in  my  life."  The  other  man  had  nothing  to  say  to  that. 
Hamburg  has  a  splendid  fish  supply,  and  Holstein 
brings  her  quantities  of  fruit  and  of  farm  produce. 
Your  second  breakfast  there  is  like  a  French  dejeuner, 
a  meal  served  and  prepared  according  to  your  means, 
but  a  regular  meal  and  not  a  mere  snack.  You  drink 
coffee  after  it,  and  so  sustain  life  till  five  o'clock,  when 
you  dine.  Then  you  drink  coffee  again,  and  as  your 
dinner  has  probably  been  an  uncommonly  good  one 
you  only  need  a  light  supper  at  nine  o'clock,  when  a 
tray  will  arrive  with  little  sandwiches  and  slender 
bottles  of  beer.  In  North  Germany,  where  wine  is 
scarce  and  dear,  it  is  hardly  ever  seen  in  many  house- 


FOOD  157 

holds,  so  that  a  young  Englishman  wanting  to  describe 
his  German  friends,  divided  them  for  convenience  into 
wine  people  and  beer  people.  The  wine  people  were 
plutocrats,  and  had  red  or  white  Rhine  wine  every  day 
for  dinner.  I  probably  need  not  tell  my  well-informed 
country  people  that  Germans  never  speak  of  hock. 

In  households  where  the  chief  meal  of  the  day  is  at 
one  or  two  o'clock  there  is  afternoon  tea  or  coffee.  It 
used  invariably  to  be  coffee,  good  hot  coffee  and  fresh 
rusks  and  dainty  little  Hornchen  and  Radankuchen,  an 
excellent  light  cake  baked  in  a  twisty  tin.  German 
cakes  want  a  whole  chapter  to  themselves  to  do  them 
justice,  and  they  should  have  it  if  it  were  not  for  a 
dialogue  that  frequently  takes  place  in  a  family  well 
known  to  me.  The  wife  is  of  German  origin,  but  as 
she  has  an  English  husband  and  English  servants  she 
keeps  house  in  the  English  way.  Therefore  mutton 
cold  or  hashed  is  her  frequent  portion. 

"  How  I  hate  hashed  mutton,"  she  sometimes  says. 

"  Why  do  you  have  it,  then  ?  "  says  the  husband,  who 
has  a  genius  for  asking  apparently  innocent  but  really 
provoking  questions. 

"  What  else  can  I  have  ?  "  says  the  wife. 

"  Eel  in  jelly,"  says  the  husband.  He  once  tasted  it 
in  Berlin,  and  it  must  have  given  him  a  mental  shock ; 
for  whenever  his  wife  approaches  him  with  a  domestic 
difficulty,  asks  him,  for  instance,  what  he  would  like  for 
breakfast,  he  suggests  this  inaccessible  and  uninviting 
dish. 

"  There  is  never  anything  to  eat  in  England  except 
mutton  and  apple-tart,"  says  the  wife.  "  Your  plain 
cooks  can't  cook  anything  else.  They  can't  cook  those 
really.  Think  of  a  German  apple-tart — " 

"  Why  should  I  ?      I  don't  want  one." 

"  That's  the  hopeless  part  of  it.     You  are  all  content 


158  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

with  what  Daudet  called  your  abominable  cuisine.  \ 
thank  him  for  the  phrase.  It  is  descriptive." 

"  Oh,  well,"  says  the  husband,  "  we're  not  a  greedy 
nation." 

So  if  this  is  the  English  point  of  view  the  less  said 
about  cakes  the  better.  And  anyhow,  it  is  in  this 
country  that  afternoon  tea  .is  an  engaging  meal.  Berlin 
offers  you  tea  nowadays,  but  it  is  never  good,  and 
instead  of  freshly  cut  bread  and  butter  they  have  horrid 
little  chokey  biscuits  flavoured  with  vanilla.  Old- 
fashioned  Germans  used  to  put  a  bit  of  vanilla  in  the 
tea-pot  when  they  had  guests  they  delighted  to  honour, 
but  they  all  know  better  than  that  nowadays.  The 
milk  is  often  boiled  milk,  but  even  that  scarcely  ex- 
plains why  tea  is  so  seldom  fit  to  drink  in  Germany. 
Supper  is  a  light  meal  in  most  houses.  The  English 
mutton  bone  is  never  seen,  for  when  cold  meat  is  eaten 
it  is  cut  in  neat  slices  and  put  on  a  long  narrow  dish. 
But  there  is  nearly  always  something  from  the  nearest 
Delikatessen  shop  with  it, — slices  of  ham  or  tongue,  or 
slices  of  one  or  two  of  the  various  sausages  of  Germany  : 
Blutwurst,  Mettwurst,  Schinkenwurst>  Leberwurst,  all 
different  and  all  good.  When  a  hot  dish  is  served 
it  is  usually  a  light  one,  often  an  omelette  or  some 
other  preparation  of  eggs ;  and  in  spring  eggs  and  bits 
of  asparagus  are  a  great  deal  cooked  together  in  various 
ways :  not  asparagus  heads  so  often  as  short  lengths  of 
the  stalk  sold  separately  in  the  market,  and  quite  tender 
when  cooked.  There  is  nearly  always  a  salad  with  the 
cold  meat  or  a  dish  of  the  salted  cucumbers  that  make 
such  a  good  pickle.  The  big  loaves  of  light  brown  rye 
bread  appear  at  this  meal  instead  of  the  little  white 
rolls  eaten  at  breakfast.  Beer  or  wine  is  drunk,  and  very 
often  of  late  years  tea  as  well.  Sweets  are  not  usually 
served  at  supper,  unless  guests  are  present.  They  are 


FOOD  159 

eaten  at  the  midday  dinner,  and  each  part  of  Germany 
has  its  own  favourite  dishes. 

Soups  are  nearly  always  good  in  Germany,  and  some 
of  the  best  are  not  known  in  England.  The  dried 
green  corn  so  much  used  for  soup  in  South  Germany 
can,  however,  be  bought  in  London  from  the  German 
provision  merchants,  so  at  the  end  of  this  greedy 
chapter  I  will  give  a  recipe  for  making  it.  Nudel- 
suppe  of  strong  chicken  stock  and  home-made  Nudeln 
used  to  be  what  the  Berliner  called  his  roast  goose — 
" eine  jute  jabe  Jottes"  but  the  degenerate  Germans  of 
to-day  buy  tasteless  manufactured  Nudeln  instead  of 
rolling  out  their  own.  Nudeln  are  the  German  form 
of  macaroni,  but  when  properly  made  they  are  better 
than  any  macaroni  can  be.  If  you  have  been  brought 
up  in  an  old-fashioned  German  manage,  and,  as  a  child 
likes  to  do,  peeped  into  the  kitchen  sometimes,  you  will 
remember  seeing  large  sheets  of  something  as  thin  and 
yellow  as  chamois  leather  hung  on  a  clothes  horse  to 
dry.  Then  you  knew  that  there  would  be  Nudeln  for 
your  dinner,  either  narrow  ones  in  soup,  or  wider  ones 
boiled  in  water  and  sprinkled  with  others  cut  as  fine 
as  vermicelli  and  fried  brown  in  butter.  The  paste  is 
troublesome  to  make.  It  begins  with  a  deceptive 
simplicity.  Take  four  whole  eggs  and  four  tablespoons- 
ful  of  milk  if  you  want  enough  for  ten  people,  says 
the  cookery  book,  and  make  a  light  dough  of  it  with  a 
knife  in  a  basin.  Anyone  can  do  that,  you  find.  But 
then  you  must  put  your  dough  on  the  pastry  board, 
and  work  in  more  flour  as  you  knead  it  with  your 
hands.  "  the  longer  you  knead  and  the  stiffer  the 
dough  is  the  better  your  Nudeln  will  be,"  continues 
the  cookery  book.  But  the  next  operation  is  to  cut 
the  dough  into  four,  and  roll  out  each  portion  as  thin 
as  paper,  and  no  one  who  has  not  seen  German  Nudeln 


160  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

before  they  are  cooked  can  believe  that  this  is  actually 
done.  It  is  no  use  to  give  the  rest  of  the  recipe  for 
drying  them,  rolling  each  piece  loosely  and  cutting  it 
into  strips  and  boiling  them  with  salt  in  water.  If  you 
told  your  English  cook  to  make  you  Nudeln  she  would 
despise  it  for  a  foreign  mess,  and  bring  you  something 
as  thick  as  a  pancake.  If  you  want  them  you  had 
better  get  them  in  a  box  from  a  provision  merchant,  as 
the  Hausfrau  herself  does  nowadays. 

English  people  often  say  that  there  is  no  good  meat 
to  be  had  in  Germany.  I  would  say  that  there  is  no 
good  mutton,  and  a  great  deal  of  poor  coarse  beef.  But 
the  Filetbraten  that  you  can  get  from  the  best  butchers 
is  excellent.  It  is  a  long  roll  of  undercut  of  beef,  so 
long  that  it  seems  to  be  sold  by  the  yard.  If  you  cook 
it  in  the  English  way,  says  my  German  cookery  book, 
you  rub  it  well  with  salt  and  pepper  and  baste  it  with 
butter ;  while  the  gravy  is  made  with  flour,  mushrooms, 
cream,  and  extract  of  beef.  I  should  like  to  see  the 
expression  of  the  English  plain  cook  if  she  was  told  to 
baste  her  beef  with  butter  and  make  her  gravy  for  it 
with  mushrooms.  I  once  came  back  from  Germany  with 
a  new  idea  for  gravy,  and  tried  it  on  a  cook  who  seemed 
to  think  that  gravy  was  made  by  upsetting  a  kettle 
over  a  joint  and  then  adding  lumps  of  flour. 

"  My  sister's  cook  always  puts  an  onion  in  the 
tin  with  a  joint,"  I  said  tentatively,  for  I  was  not 
very  hopeful.  I  know  that  there  is  always  some  in- 
superable objection  to  anything  not  consecrated  by 
tradition. 

"  It  gives  the  gravy  a  flavour,"  I  went  on, — "  not  a 
strong  flavour  " — 

I  stopped.     I  waited  for  the  objection. 

"  We  couldn't  do  that  HERE,"  said  the  cook. 

"  Why  not  ? — We  have  tins  and  we  have  onions." 


FOOD  161 

"  It  would  spoil  the  dripping.  What  could  I  do 
with  dripping  as  tasted  of  onion  ?  " 

I  had  never  thought  of  that,  and  so  I  had  never 
asked  my  sister  what  was  done  in  her  household  with 
dripping  as  tasted  with  onion. 

"  I  should  think,"  I  said  slowly,  "  that  it  could  be 
used  to  baste  the  next  joint." 

"Then  that  would  taste  of  onion,"  said  the  cook, 
"  and  I  should  have  no  dripping  when  I  wanted  it." 

I  have  always  thought  dripping  a  dull  subject,  and  I 
know  that  it  is  an  explosive  one,  so  I  said  nothing  more. 
I  went  on  instead  to  describe  a  piece  of  beef  stewed  in 
its  own  juices  on  a  bed  of  chopped  vegetables.  We 
actually  tried  that,  and  when  it  was  cold  it  tasted 
agreeably  of  the  vegetables,  and  was  as  tender  to 
carve  as  butter. 

"  How  did  you  like  the  German  beef?"  I  said  to  an 
Englishwoman  who  had  been  with  me  a  great  many 
years. 

"  I  didn't  like  it  at  all,  M'm." 

"  But  it  was  so  tender." 

"  Yes,  M'm,  it  made  me  creep,"  she  said. 

So  this  chapter  is  really  of  no  use  from  one  point 
of  view.  You  may  hear  what  queer  things  benighted 
people  like  the  Germans  eat  and  drink,  but  you  will  never 
persuade  your  British  household  to  condescend  to  them. 

Except  in  the  coast  towns,  sea  fish  is  scarce  and  dear 
all  over  Germany.  Salt  fish  and  fresh-water  fish  are 
what  you  get,  and  except  the  trout  it  is  not  interesting. 
A  great  deal  of  carp  is  eaten,  cooked  with  vinegar 
to  turn  it  blue,  and  served  with  horseradish  or  wine 
sauce.  At  a  dinner  party  I  have  seen  tench  given,  and 
they  were  extremely  pretty,  like  fish  in  old  Italian 
pictures,  but  they  were  not  worth  eating.  At  least  a 
pound  of  fresh  butter  was  put  on  each  dish  of  them, 
ii 


1 62  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

handed  round,  and  you  took  some  of  it  as  well  as  a  sort 
of  mustard  sauce.     Perch,  pike,  and  eel  are  all  eaten 
where  nothing  better  is  to  be  had ;  but  the  standing 
fish-course  of  inland  Germany  is  trout.     Most  hotels 
have  a  tank  where  they  keep  it  alive  till  it  is  wanted, 
and  in  the  Black    Forest    the  peasants  catch    it  and 
peddle  it,  walking  miles  to  make  good  sales.     We  went 
into  the  garden  of  our  hotel  in  the  Wiesenthal  one  day, 
and  found    the  basin  of  the  fountain  there  crammed 
with  live  trout.     It  was  so  full  that  you  could  take  one 
in  your  hand  for  a  moment  and  look  at  its  speckles,  as 
lovely  as  the  speckles  on  a  thrush's  breast.     The  man 
who  was  carrying  them  on  his  back  in  a  wooden  water- 
tight satchel  was  having  a  drink,  and  he  had  put  out 
his  fish  for  a  drink  while  he  rested.      I  have  never  been 
within  reach  of  fresh  herrings  in  Germany,  and  have 
never  seen    them    there,  but    smoked    ones  are  eaten 
everywhere,  often  with  salad,  or  together  with  smoked 
ham  and  potatoes  in  their  jackets.     Neither  the  ham 
nor  the  herrings  are  ever  cooked  when  they  have  been 
smoked,  and  the   ham  is  very  tough  in  consequence. 
The  breast  of  a  goose,  too,  is  eaten  smoked  but  not 
cooked,  and  is  considered  a  great  delicacy.      Poultry 
varies  in  quality  a  good  deal.      Everyone  knows  the 
little  chickens  that  come  round  at   hotel   dinners,  all 
legs    and    bones.      A    German    family   will    sit    down 
contentedly  to  an  old  hen  that  the  most  economical  of 
us  would    only  use  for  soup,  and    they  will  serve  it 
roasted  though  it  is  as  tough  as  leather.     I  think  it 
must  be  said  that  you  get  better  fowls  both  in  France 
and  England  than  in  Germany.     The  German  national 
bird  is  the  goose.      In  England,  if  you  buy  a  goose 
your  cook  roasts  it  and  sends  it  up,  and  that  is  all  you 
ever  know  of  it.     In  Germany  a  goose  is  a  carnival, 
rather  as  a  newly  killed  pig  is  in  an  English  farmhouse. 


FOOD  163 

You  begin  with  a  stew  of  the  giblets,  you  perhaps 
continue  with  the  bird  itself  roasted  and  stuffed  with 
chestnuts,  you  may  have  a  dozen  different  dishes  made 
of  its  remains,  while  the  fat  that  has  basted  it  you 
hoard  and  use  sparingly  for  weeks.  For  instance, 
you  cook  a  cabbage  with  a  little  of  it  instead  of  with 
water.  In  South  Germany,  goose  livers  are  prepared 
with  it,  and  are  just  as  much  liked  as  pate  de  foie  gras. 
Hares  are  eaten  and  most  carefully  prepared  in 
Germany.  They  are  skinned  in  a  way  that  an  English 
poulterer  has  been  known  to  learn  from  his  German 
customers  and  pronounce  very  troublesome,  and  the 
back  is  usually  served  separately,  larded  and  basted 
with  sour  cream.  Vegetables  are  cooked  less  simply 
than  in  England,  and  you  will  find  the  two  countries 
disagree  heatedly  about  them.  The  Englishman  does 
not  want  his  peas  messed  up  with  grease  and  vinegar, 
and  though  he  will  be  too  polite  to  say  so,  he  will 
silently  agree  with  his  plain  cook  who  says  that  peas 
served  in  the  pod  is  a  dish  only  fit  for  pigs  and  what 
she  has  never  been  accustomed  to  ;  while  the  German 
will  get  quite  dejected  over  the  everlasting  plain  boiled 
cabbage  and  potatoes  he  is  offered  week  after  week  in 
his  English  boarding-house.  At  home,  he  says,  he  is 
used  to  mountains  of  fat  asparagus  all  the  spring,  and 
he  thinks  slightly  of  your  skinny  green  ones  or  of  the 
wooden  stuff  you  import  and  pay  less  for  because  it  is 
"  foreign."  He  likes  potatoes  cooked  in  twenty  various 
ways,  and  when  mashed  he  is  of  opinion  that  they 
should  not  be  black  or  lumpy.  He  wants  a  dozen 
different  vegetables  dished  up  round  one  joint  of  beef, 
and  in  summer  salads  of  various  kinds  on  various 
occasions,  and  not  your  savage  mixed  salad  with  a 
horrible  sauce  poured  out  of  a  bottle ;  furniture  polish 
he  believes  it  to  be  from  its  colour.  In  the  autumn  he 


1 64  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

expects  chestnuts  cooked  with  gravy  and  vegetables,  or 
made  into  light  puddings ;  and  apple  sauce,  he  assures 
you,  should  be  a  creamy  white,  and  as  smooth  as  a  well 
made  pur<£e.  If  he  is  of  the  South  he  would  like  a 
Mehlspeise  after  his  meat,  Spetzerle  if  he  comes  from 
Wiirtemberg ;  one  of  a  hundred  different  dishes  if  he  is 
a  Bavarian.  He  will  not  allow  that  your  national  milk 
puddings  take  their  place.  If  he  is  a  North  German 
his  Leibgericht  may  be  Rothe  Grtitze.  This  is  eaten 
enormously  all  over  Denmark  and  North  Germany  in 
summer,  and  is  nothing  in  the  world  but  a  ground  rice 
or  sago  mould  made  with  fruit  juice  instead  of  milk. 
The  old-fashioned  way  was  to  squeeze  raspberries  and 
currants  through  a  cloth  till  you  had  a  quart  of  pure 
juice,  which  you  then  boiled  with  4  oz.  ground  rice  and 
sugar  to  taste,  stirring  carefully  lest  it  should  burn,  and 
stirring  patiently  so  that  the  rice  should  be  well  cooked. 
But  where  fruit  is  dear  you  can  make  excellent  Rothe 
Griitze  by  stewing  the  fruit  first  with  a  little  water  and 
straining  off  the  juice.  A  quart  of  currants  and  a 
pound  of  raspberries  should  give  you  a  good  quart 
mould.  The  Danes  make  it  of  rhubarb  and  plum  juice 
in  the  same  way ;  and  my  German  cookery  book  gives 
a  recipe  for  Griine  Griitze  made  with  green  gooseberries, 
but  I  tried  that  once  and  found  it  quite  inferior  to  our 
own  gooseberry  fool. 

Food  is  so  much  a  matter  of  taste  and  custom,  that  it 
seems  absurd  to  make  dogmatic  remarks  about  the 
superiority  of  one  kitchen  to  another.  If  you  like  cold 
mutton,  boiled  potatoes  and  rice  pudding,  most  days 
in  the  week,  you  like  them  and  there  is  an  end  of  it. 
The  one  thing  you  can  say  for  certain  is  that  to  cook 
for  you  requires  neither  skill  nor  pains,  while  to  cook 
for  a  German  family,  even  if  it  lives  plainly  and  poorly, 
takes  time  and  trouble.  In  trying  to  compare  the 


FOOD  165 

methods  of  two  nations,  one  must  naturally  be  careful 
to  compare  households  on  the  same  social  plane;  and 
an  English  household  that  lives  on  cold  mutton  and 
rice  pudding  is  certainly  a  plain  and  probably  a  poor 
one.  In  well-to-do  English  households  you  get  the 
best  food  in  the  world  as  far  as  raw  material  goes,  but 
it  must  be  said  that  you  often  get  poor  cooking.  It 
passes  quite  unnoticed  too.  No  one  seems  to  mind 
thick  soups  that  are  too  thick  and  gravies  that  are 
tasteless,  and  melted  butter  like  Stickphast  paste,  and 
savouries  quite  acrid  with  over  much  vinegar  and 
anchovy.  I  once  saw  a  whole  company  of  English 
people  contentedly  eat  a  dish  of  hot  scones  that  had 
gone  wrong.  They  tasted  of  strong  yellow  soap.  But 
I  once  saw  a  company  of  Germans  eat  bad  fish  and 
apparently  like  it.  They  were  sea  soles  handed  round 
in  a  Swiss  hotel,  and  they  should  by  rights  have 
been  buried  the  day  before.  I  thought  of  Ottilie 
von  Schlippenschlopp  and  the  oysters.  But  the  soles 
were  carefully  cooked,  and  served  with  an  elaborate 
sauce. 

GREEN  CORN  SOUP. — For  six  people  take  7  oz.  of 
green  corn :  wash  it  well  in  hot  water,  and  cook  it 
until  it  is  quite  soft  in  stock  or  salt  water.  Put  it 
through  a  sieve,  add  boiling  stock,  and  serve  with  fried 
slice  of  bread  or  with  small  semolina  dumplings. 

GREEN  CORN  SOUP. — Another  way.  For  six 
people  take  5^  oz.  of  green  corn,  wash  it  well  in  hot 
water,  and  let  it  simmer  for  a  few  minutes  with  a  little 
stock  and  ij  oz.  butter.  Then  add  strong  stock,  and 
let  it  simmer  slowly  with  the  lid  on  till  the  corn  is  soft. 
Then  stir  a  tablespoonful  of  fine  flour  with  half  a  cupful 
of  milk,  and  add  it  to  the  soup,  stirring  all  the  time. 
This  must  then  cook  an  hour  longer.  When  ready  to 


1 66  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

serve,  mix  the  yolks  of  two  eggs  with  a  little  sour 
cream,  and  add  the  soup  carefully  so  that  it  is  not 
curdled.  The  soup  is  not  strained  through  a  sieve 
when  it  is  served  without  dumplings. 

The  little  dumplings  are  first  cooked  as  a  panada  of 
semolina,  butter,  milk  and  egg,  and  then  dropped  into 
the  soup  and  cooked  in  it  for  ten  minutes. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

SHOPS  AND  MARKETS 

BERLIN  people  compare  their  Wertheim  with 
the  Bon  Marche*  at  Paris,  or  with  Whiteley's  in 
London  ;  only  always  adding  that  Wertheim  is  superior 
to  any  emporium  in  France  or  England.  So  it  really 
is  in  one  way.  A  great  artist  designed  it,  and  the 
outside  of  the  building  is  plain  and  stately,  a  most 
refreshing  contrast  to  most  Berlin  architecture.  On 
the  ground  floor  there  is  a  high  spacious  hall  that  is 
splendid  when  it  is  lighted  up  at  night,  and  a 
staircase  leads  up  and  down  from  here  to  the  various 
departments,  all  decorated  soberly  and  pleasantly, 
mostly  with  wood.  You  can  buy  almost  anything  you 
want  at  Wertheim's,  from  the  furniture  of  your  house 
to  a  threepenny  pair  of  cotton  mittens  with  a  thumb 
and  no  fingers.  You  can  see  tons  of  the  most  hideous 
rubbish  there,  and  you  can  find  a  corner  reserved  for 
original  work,  done  by  two  or  three  artists  whose 
names  are  well  known  in  Germany.  For  instance, 
Wertheim  exhibits  the  very  clever  curious  "applications" 
done  by  Frau  Katy  Miinchhausen,  groups  of  monkeys, 
storks,  cocks  and  hens,  and  other  animals,  drawn  with 
immense  spirit  and  life  on  cloth,  cut  out  and  then 
machined  on  a  background  of  another  colour.  The 
machining  has  a  bad  sound,  I  admit,  but  for  all  that  the 

"  applications  "  are  enchanting.     Wertheim,  too,  shows 

167 


1 68  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

some  good  furniture ;  he  sells  theatre  tickets,  books, 
fruit,  groceries,  Liberty  cushions,  embroideries,  soaps, 
perfumes,  toys,  ironmongery,  china,  glass,  as  well  as 
everything  that  can  be  called  drapery.  He  has  a  tea- 
room as  well  as  a  large  general  refreshment- room, 
where  you  can  get  ices,  iced  coffee,  beer,  all  kinds  of 
sandwiches,  and  the  various  Torten  Germans  make  so 
very  much  better  than  other  people.  In  this  room  no 
money  is  wasted  on  waiters  or  waitresses,  and  no  one 
expects  to  be  tipped.  You  fetch  what  you  want  from 
a  long  bar  running  along  two  sides  of  the  room,  and 
divided  into  short  stretches,  each  selling  its  own  stuff; 
you  pay  at  the  counter,  and  you  carry  your  ice  or 
your  cake  to  any  little  marble-topped  table  you  choose. 
The  advantage  of  the  plan  is  that  you  do  not  have  to 
wait  till  you  catch  the  eye  of  a  waitress  determined  not 
to  look  your  way  :  the  disadvantage  is  that  you  have 
to  perform  the  difficult  feat  of  carrying  a  full  cup  or  a 
full  glass  through  a  crowd.  Whatever  you  buy  at  the 
counter  is  sure  to  be  good,  but  if  all  you  could  get  was 
a  Mugby  Junction  bun  you  would  have  to  eat  it  after 
the  exhausting  process  of  buying  a  yard  of  ribbon  or  a 
few  picture  postcards  at  Wertheim's. 

To  begin  with,  there  are  no  chairs.  You  cannot  sit 
down.  On  a  hot  summer  morning,  when  you  have 
perhaps  been  to  the  market  already,  you  go  to  the 
Leipziger  Strasse  for  theatre  tickets,  a  pair  of  gloves, 
and  two  or  three  small  odds  and  ends.  On  the  ground 
floor  you  see  gloves,  innumerable  boxes  of  them  besieged 
by  a  pushing,  determined  crowd  of  women.  The  shop 
ladies  in  any  coloured  blouses  look  hot  and  weary,  but 
try  to  serve  six  customers  at  once.  When  you  have  chosen 
what  you  want,  and  know  exactly  how  sharp  the  elbows 
to  left  and  right  of  you  are,  you  see  your  lady  walk  off 
with  your  most  pushful  neighbour  and  the  pair  of  three- 


SHOPS  AND  MARKETS  169 

penny  gloves  she  has  after  much  argument  agreed 
to  buy ;  for  at  Wertheim's  you  cannot  depart  with  so 
much  as  a  halfpenny  postcard  till  it  has  passed  through 
three  pairs  of  hands  besides  your  own.  First  the 
shop  lady  must  deposit  it  with  a  bill  at  the  cashier's 
desk.  Then,  when  the  cashier  can  attend  to  you,  you 
pay  for  it.  Then  you  may  wait  any  time  until  the 
third  person  concerned  will  do  it  up  in  paper  and  string. 
This  last  proceeding  is  often  so  interminably  delayed 
that  if  you  were  not  in  Germany  you  would  snatch  at 
what  you  have  paid  for  and  make  off.  But  the  Polizei 
alone  knows  what  would  happen  if  you  ran  your  head 
against  the  established  pedantry  of  things  in  the  city 
of  the  Spree.  You  would  probably  find  yourself  in 
prison  for  Beamtenbeleidigung  or  lese  majesti.  "  The 
Emperor  is  a  fool,"  said  some  disloyal  subject  in  a 
public  place.  "  To  prison  with  him,"  screamed  every 
horror-struck  official.  "  Off  with  his  head  !  "  "  But  I 
meant  the  Emperor  of  China,"  protested  the  sinner. 
"  That's  impossible,"  said  the  officials  in  chorus.  "  Any- 
one who  says  the  Emperor  is  a  fool  means  our  Emperor." 
And  an  official  spirit  seems  to  encroach  on  the  business 
one,  and  drill  its  very  customers  while  it  anxiously 
serves  them.  For  instance,  the  arrangements  for  send- 
ing what  you  buy  are  most  tiresome  and  difficult  to 
understand  at  Wertheim's.  His  carts  patrol  the  streets, 
and  your  German  friends  assure  you  that  he  sends 
anything.  You  find  that  if  you  shop  with  a  country 
card  the  things  entered  on  it  will  arrive;  but  if  you 
buy  a  bulky  toy  or  some  heavy  books  and  pay  for  them 
in  their  departments,  you  meet  with  fuss  and  refusal 
when  you  ask  as  a  matter  of  course  to  have  them  sent. 
It  can  be  done  if  your  goods  have  cost  enough,  but  not 
if  you  have  only  spent  two  or  three  shillings.  It  is 
the  fashion  in  England  just  now  for  every  man  who 


1 70  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

writes  about  Germans  to  say  that  they  are  immensely 
ahead  of  us  in  business  matters.  I  cannot  judge  of 
them  in  their  factories  and  warehouses,  but  I  am  sure 
they  are  behind  us  in  their  shops.  A  woman  cannot 
live  three  hundred  miles  from  Berlin  and  get  everything 
she  wants  from  Wertheim  delivered  by  return  and 
carriage  free.  Nor  will  he  supply  her  with  an  immense 
illustrated  catalogue  and  a  book  of  order  forms  addressed 
to  his  firm,  so  that  the  trouble  of  shopping  from  a 
distance  is  reduced  to  a  minimum.  In  England  you 
can  do  your  London  shopping  as  easily,  promptly,  and 
cheaply  from  a  Scotch  or  a  Cornish  village  as  you  can 
from  a  Surrey  suburb. 

In  most  German  towns  you  still  find  the  shops 
classified  on  the  old  lines.  You  go  to  one  for  drapery, 
and  to  another  for  linen,  and  to  another  for  small  wares, 
and  to  yet  another  for  ribbons.  There  are  sausage 
shops  and  chocolate  shops,  and  in  Berlin  there  are 
shops  for  the  celebrated  Berlin  Baumkuchen.  There 
are  a  great  many  cellar  shops  all  over  Germany,  and 
these  are  mostly  restaurants,  laundries,  and  greengrocers. 
The  drinking  scene  in  Faust  when  Mephisto  made  wine 
flow  from  the  table  takes  place  in  Auerbach's  Keller, 
a  cellar  restaurant  still  in  existence  in  Leipzig.  The 
lower  class  of  cellar  takes  the  place  in  Germany  of 
our  slums,  and  the  worst  of  them  are  regular  thieves' 
kitchens  known  to  the  police.  There  is  an  admirable 
description  of  life  in  a  cellar  shop  in  Klara  Viebig's 
Das  Tagliche  Brod.  The  woman  who  keeps  it  has  a 
greengrocery  business  and  a  registry  office  for  servants, 
and  as  such  people  go  is  respectable ;  but  I  recommend 
the  book  to  my  countrymen  who  go  to  Berlin  as 
officials  or  journalists  for  ten  days,  are  taken  over 
various  highly  polished  public  institutions,  and  come 
back  to  tell  us  that  the  Germans  are  every  man  jack 


SHOPS  AND  MARKETS  171 

of  them  clean,  prosperous,  well  mannered,  and  healthy. 
It  is  true  that  German  municipal  government  is  striving 
rather  splendidly  to  bring  this  state  of  things  about, 
but  they  have  plenty  of  work  before  them  still.  These 
cellar  shops,  for  instance,  are  more  fit  for  mushroom 
growing  than  for  human  nurseries,  and  yet  the  picture 
in  the  novel  of  the  family  struggling  with  darkness  and 
disease  there  can  still  be  verified  in  most  of  the  old 
streets  of  Germany. 

When  our  English  journalists  write  column  after 
column  about  the  dangerous  explosive  energy  and 
restlessness  of  modern  Germany,  I  feel  sure  that  they 
must  be  right,  and  yet  I  wish  they  could  have  come 
shopping  with  me  a  year  or  two  ago  in  a  small  Black 
Forest  town.  One  of  us  wanted  a  watch  key  and  the 
other  a  piece  of  tape,  and  we  set  off  light-heartedly 
to  buy  them,  for  we  knew  that  there  was  a  draper  and  a 
watchmaker  in  the  main  street.  We  knew,  too,  that 
in  South  Germany  everyone  is  first  dining  and  then 
asleep  between  twelve  and  two,  so  we  waited  till  after 
two  and  then  went  to  the  watchmaker's.  There  was 
no  shop  window,  and  when,  after  ringing  two  or  three 
times,  we  were  let  in  we  found  there  was  no  shop.  We 
sat  down  in  a  big  cool  sitting-room,  beautifully  clean 
and  tidy.  The  watchmaker's  wife  appeared  in  due 
course,  looked  at  us  with  friendly  interest,  asked  us 
where  we  came  from,  and  how  long  we  meant  to  stay, 
wondered  if  we  knew  her  cousin  Johannes  Miiller,  a 
hairdresser  in  Islington,  discussed  the  relative  merits  of 
emigration  to  England  and  America,  offered  us  some 
cherries  from  a  basketful  on  the  table,  and  at  last 
admitted  unwillingly  that  her  husband  was  not  at  home, 
and  that  she  herself  knew  not  whether  he  had  watch 
keys.  So  we  set  off  to  buy  our  tape,  and  again  found 
a  private  room,  an  amiable  family,  but  no  one  who  felt 


i;2  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

able  to  sell  anything.  It  seemed  an  odd  way  of  doing 
business  we  said  to  our  landlord,  but  he  saw  nothing 
odd  in  it.  Most  people  were  busy  with  their  hay,  he 
explained.  Towards  the  end  of  a  week  we  caught 
our  watchmaker,  and  obtained  a  key,  but  he  would  not 
let  us  pay  for  it.  He  said  it  was  one  of  an  old  collection, 
and  of  no  use  to  him.  The  etiquette  of  shopping  in 
Germany  seems  to  us  rather  topsy-turvy  at  first.  In  a 
small  shop  the  proprietor  is  as  likely  as  not  to  conduct 
business  with  a  cigar  in  his  mouth,  even  if  you  are  a 
lady,  but  if  you  are  a  man  he  will  think  you  a  boor  if 
you  omit  to  remove  your  hat  as  you  cross  his  thresh- 
old. Whether  you  are  a  man,  woman,  or  child,  you 
will  wish  him  good-morning  or  good-evening  before 
you  ask  for  what  you  want,  and  he  will  answer  you 
before  he  asks  what  your  commands  are.  If  you  are  a 
woman,  about  as  ignorant  as  most  women,  and  with  a 
humble  mind,  you  will  probably  have  no  fixed  opinion 
about  the  question  of  free  or  fair  trade.  You  may  even, 
if  you  are  very  humble,  recognise  that  it  is  not  quite 
the  simple  question  Dick,  Tom,  and  Harry  think  it  is. 
But  you  will  know  for  certain  that  when  you  want 
ribbons  for  a  hat  you  had  better  buy  them  in 
Kensington  and  not  in  Frankfurt,  and  that  though 
there  are  plenty  of  cheap  materials  in  Germany,  the 
same  quality  would  be  cheaper  still  in  London.  Every- 
thing to  do  with  women's  clothing  is  dearer  there  than 
here.  So  is  stationery,  so  are  groceries,  so  are  the 
better  class  of  fancy  goods.  But  the  Germans,  say  the 
Fair  Traders,  are  a  prosperous  nation,  and  it  is  because 
their  manufactures  are  protected.  This  may  be  so.  I 
can  only  look  at  various  quite  small  unimportant  trifles, 
such  as  ribbons,  for  instance,  or  pewter  vases  or  blotting- 
paper  or  peppermint  drops.  I  know  that  a  German 
woman  either  wears  a  common  ribbon  on  her  hat,  or 


SHOPS  AND  MARKETS  1 7  3 

pays  twice  as  much  as  I  do  for  a  good  one;  she  is 
content  with  one  pewter  vase  where  your  English 
suburban  drawing-room  packs  twenty  into  one  corner, 
with  twenty  silver  frames  and  vases  near  them.  A 
few  years  ago  the  one  thing  German  blotting-paper 
refused  to  do  was  to  absorb  ink,  and  it  was  so  dear 
that  in  all  small  country  inns  and  in  old-fashioned 
offices  you  were  expected  to  use  sand  instead.  The 
sand  was  kept  beside  the  ink  in  a  vessel  that  had  a 
top  like  a  pepper  pot ;  and  it  was  more  amusing  than 
-blotting-paper,  but  not  as  efficacious.  As  for  the 
peppermint  drops,  they  used  to  be  a  regular  export 
from  families  living  in  London  to  families  living  in 
Germany.  They  were  probably  needed  after  having 
goose  and  chestnuts  for  dinner,  and  ours  were  twice 
as  large  as  the  German  ones  and  about  six  times  as 
strong,  so  no  doubt  they  were  like  our  blotting-paper, 
and  performed  what  they  engaged  to  perform  more 
thoroughly. 

But  shops  of  any  kind  are  dull  compared  with  an 
open  market  held  in  one  of  the  many  ancient  market 
places  of  Germany.  The  photograph  of  Freiburg  gives 
a  bird's-eye  view  of  the  town  with  the  minster 
rising  from  the  midst  of  its  red  roofs ;  but  there  is  just 
a  peep  at  the  market  which  is  being  held  at  the  foot 
of  the  minster.  On  the  side  hidden  from  us  in  the 
photograph  there  are  some  of  the  oldest  houses  in 
Freiburg.  It  is  a  large  crowded  market  on  certain 
days  of  the  week,  and  full  of  colour  and  movement. 
The  peasants  who  come  to  it  from  the  neighbouring 
valleys  wear  bright-coloured  skirts  and  headgear,  and 
in  that  part  of  Germany  fruit  is  plentiful,  so  that  all 
through  the  summer  and  autumn  the  market  carts  and 
barrows  are  heaped  with  cherries,  wild  strawberries, 
plums,  apricots,  peaches,  and  grapes  in  their  season. 


174  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

The  market  place  itself,  and  even  the  steps  of  the 
minster  and  of  the  surrounding  houses,  are  crowded 
with  the  peasants  and  their  produce,  and  with  the 
leisurely  servants  and  housewives  bargaining  for  the 
day's  supplies.  The  other  photograph  of  the  market 
place  at  Cottbus  in  Brandenburg  gives  more  idea  of 
the  people  at  a  German  market;  the  servants  with 
their  umbrellas,  their  big  baskets,  their  baggy  blouses 
and  no  hats,  the  middle  class  housewife  with  a  hat  or 
a  bonnet,  and  a  huge  basket  on  her  arm,  a  nursemaid 
in  peasant  costume  stooping  over  her  perambulator,  other 
peasants  in  costume  at  the  stalls,  and  two  of  the  farm 
carts  that  are  in  some  districts  yoked  oftener  with  oxen 
than  with  horses.  There  is  naturally  great  variety  in 
the  size  and  character  of  markets,  according  to  the  needs 
they  supply.  In  Hamburg  the  old  names  show  you 
that  there  were  separate  markets  for  separate  trades, 
so  that  you  went  to  the  Schweinemarkt  when 
you  wanted  pigs,  and  to  some  other  part  of  the 
city  when  you  wanted  flowers  and  fruit.  In  Berlin 
there  are  twelve  covered  markets  besides  the  open 
ones,  and  they  are  all  as  admirably  clean,  tidy, 
and  unpoetical  as  everything  else  is  in  that  spick 
and  span,  swept  and  garnished  Philistine  city.  The 
green  gooseberries  there  are  marked  "  unripe  fruit " 
by  order  of  the  police,  so  that  no  one  should  think 
they  were  ripe  and  eat  them  uncooked ;  and  you  can 
buy  rhubarb  nowadays,  a  vegetable  the  modern  Berliner 
eats  without  shuddering.  But  in  a  Berlin  market 
you  buy  what  you  need  as  quickly  as  you  can  and 
come  away.  There  is  nothing  to  tempt  you,  nothing 
picturesque,  nothing  German,  if  German  brings  to  your 
mind  a  queer  mixture  of  poetry  and  music,  gabled, 
tumbledown  houses,  storks'  nests,  toys,  marvellous 
cakes  and  sweets  and  the  kindliest  of  people.  If  you 


SHOPS  AND  MARKETS  175 

are  so  modern  that  German  means  nothing  to  you  but 
drill  and  hustle,  the  roar  of  factories  and  the  pride  of 
monster  municipal  ventures,  then  you  may  see  the 
markets  of  Berlin  and  rest  content  with  them.  They 
will  show  you  what  you  already  know  of  this  day's 
Germany.  But  my  household  treasures  gathered  here 
and  there  in  German  markets  did  not  have  one  added 
to  their  number  in  Berlin. 

"  That ! "  said  a  German  friend  when  I  showed  her 
a  yellow  pitcher  dabbed  with  colour,  and  having  a 
.spout,  a  handle,  and  a  lid, — "  that !  I  would  not  have 
it  in  my  kitchen." 

It  certainly  only  cost  the  third  of  a  penny,  but  it 
lived  with  honour  in  my  drawing-room  till  it  shared 
the  fate  of  all  clay,  and  came  in  two  in  somebody's 
hands.  The  blue  and  grey  bellied  bottle,  one  of  those 
in  which  the  Thuringian  peasants  carry  beer  to  the 
field,  cost  three  halfpence,  but  the  butter-dish  with  a 
lid  of  the  same  ware  only  cost  a  halfpenny.  There  is 
always  an  immense  heap  of  this  rough  grey  and  blue 
pottery  in  a  South  German  market,  and  it  is  much 
prettier  than  the  more  ornate  Coblenz  ware  we  import 
and  sell  at  high  prices.  So  is  the  deep  red  earthen- 
ware glazed  inside  and  rough  outside  and  splashed  with 
colours.  You  find  plenty  of  it  at  the  Leipziger  Messe, 
that  -historical  fair  that  used  to  be  as  important  to 
Western  Europe  as  Nijni  Novgorod  is  to  Russia  and 
the  East.  To  judge  from  modern  German  trade 
circulars,  it  is  still  of  considerable  importance,  and  the 
buildings  in  which  merchants  of  all  countries  display 
their  wares  have  recently  been  renovated  and  enlarged. 
Out  of  doors  the  various  market-places  are  covered 
with  little  stalls  selling  cheap  clothing,  cheap  toys, 
jewellery,  sweets,  and  gingerbread ;  all  the  hetero- 
geneous rubbish  you  have  seen  a  thousand  times  at 


1 76  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

German  fairs,  and  never  tire  of  seeing  if  a  fair  delights 
you. 

But  better  than  the  Leipziger  Messe,  better  even 
than  a  summer  market  at  Freiburg  or  at  Heidelburg, 
is  a  Christmas  market  in  any  one  of  the  old  German 
cities  in  the  hill  country,  when  the  streets  and  the  open 
places  are  covered  with  crisp  clean  snow,  and  the 
mountains  are  white  with  it,  and  the  moon  shines 
on  the  ancient  houses,  and  the  tinkle  of  sledge  bells 
reaches  you  when  you  escape  from  the  din  of  the  market, 
and  look  down  at  the  bustle  of  it  from  some  silent  place, 
a  high  window  perhaps,  or  the  high  empty  steps  leading 
into  the  cathedral.  The  air  is  cold  and  still,  and  heavy 
with  the  scent  of  the  Christmas  trees  brought  from  the 
forest  for  the  pleasure  of  the  children.  Day  by  day 
you  see  the  rows  of  them  growing  thinner,  and  if  you 
go  to  the  market  on  Christmas  Eve  itself  you  will  find 
only  a  few  trees  left  out  in  the  cold.  The  market  is 
empty,  the  peasants  are  harnessing  their  horses  or  their 
oxen,  the  women  are  packing  up  their  unsold  goods. 
In  every  home  in  the  city  one  of  the  trees  that  scented 
the  open  air  a  week  ago  is  shining  now  with  lights  and 
little  gilded  nuts  and  apples,  and  is  helping  to  make 
that  Christmas  smell,  all  compact  of  the  pine  forest, 
wax  candles,  cakes,  and  painted  toys,  you  must  associate 
so  long  as  you  live  with  Christmas  in  Germany. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

EXPENSES    OF   LIFE 

A  FEW  years  ago  a  German  economist  reckoned  that 
there  were  only  250,000  families  in  the  empire 
whose  incomes  exceeded  £450,  a  year.  There  were 
nearly  three  million  households  living  on  incomes 
ranging  from  £135  to  £450,  and  nearly  four  millions 
with  more  than  £go  but  less  than  £135.  But  there 
were  upwards  of  five  millions  whose  incomes  fell  below 
£4$.  Since  that  estimate  was  made,  Germany  has 
grown  in  wealth  and  prosperity ;  and  in  the  big  cities 
there  is  great  expenditure  and  luxury  amongst  some 
classes,  especially  amongst  the  Jews  who  can  afford  it, 
and  amongst  the  officers  of  the  army  who  as  a  rule 
cannot.  But  the  bulk  of  the  nation  is  poor,  and  class 
for  class  lives  on  less  than  people  do  in  England. 
For  instance,  the  headmaster  of  a  school  gets  about 
£100  a.  year  in  a  small  town,  and  from  £200  to  £300 
in  a  big  one.  A  lieutenant  gets  about  £6$  a  year, 
and  an  additional  £12  if  he  has  no  private  means.  His 
uniform  and  mess  expenses  are  deducted  from  this. 
He  is  not  allowed  to  marry  on  his  official  income, 
unless  he  or  his  wife  has  an  income  of  £125  in 
addition  to  his  pay,  as  even  in  Germany  an  army  man 
can  hardly  keep  up  appearances  and  support  a  wife 
and  family  on  less  than  £190  a  year.  It  is  quite 
common  to  hear  of  a  clerk  living  on  £40  or  £50.  or  of 


1 78  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

a  doctor  who  knows  his  work  and  yet  can  only  make 
£150.  The  official  posts  so  eagerly  sought  after  are 
poorly  paid ;  so  are  servants,  agricultural  labourers, 
and  artisans.  When  you  are  in  Germany,  if  you  are 
interested  in  questions  of  income  and  expenditure,  you 
are  always  trying  to  make  up  your  mind  why  a 
German  family  can  live  as  successfully  on  £400  as  an 
English  family  on  £700,  for  you  know  that  rent  and 
taxes  are  high  and  food  and  clothing  dear.  If  you 
are  a  woman  and  think  about  it  a  great  deal,  and  look 
at  family  life  in  as  many  places  and  classes  as  you  can, 
you  finally  decide  that  there  are  three  chief  reasons 
for  the  great  difference  between  the  cost  of  life  in 
England  and  Germany.  In  the  first  place,  labour  is 
cheaper  there ;  in  the  second  place,  the  standard  of 
luxury  and  even  of  comfort  is  lower ;  in  the  third 
place,  the  women  are  thriftier  and  more  industrious 
than  Englishwomen.  This,  too,  leaves  out  of  account 
the  most  important  fact,  that  the  State  educates  a 
man's  children  for  next  to  nothing ;  and  drills  the 
male  ones  into  shape  when  they  serve  in  the  army. 

Servants,  we  have  seen,  get  lower  wages  than  they 
do  here,  but  the  real  economy  is  in  the  smaller  number 
kept.  Where  we  pay  and  maintain  half  a  dozen  a 
German  family  will  be  content  with  two,  and  the 
typical  small  English  household  that  cannot  face  life 
without  its  plain  cook  in  the  kitchen  and  its  parlour- 
maid in  her  black  gown  at  the  front  door,  will  through- 
out the  German  Empire  get  along  quite  serenely  with 
one  young  woman  to  cook  and  clean  and  do  everything 
else  required.  If  she  is  a  "  pearl "  she  probably 
makes  the  young  ladies'  frocks  and  irons  the  master's 
shirts  to  fill  in  her  time.  Germans  do  not  trouble  about 
the  black  frock  and  the  white  apron  at  the  front  door. 
They  will  even  open  the  door  to  you  themselves  if  the 


EXPENSES  OF  LIFE  179 

"  girl "  is  washing  or  cooking.  A  female  servant  is 
always  a  "  girl "  in  Germany.  I  once  heard  a  young 
Englishwoman  who  had  not  been  long  in  Germany 
ask  an  elderly  acquaintance  to  recommend  a  dress- 
maker. 

"  The  best  one  in is  Fraulein  Miiller,"  said  the 

elderly  acquaintance. 

"  But  she  is  too  expensive,"  said  the  Englishwoman, 
and  she  glanced  across  the  room  at  the  lady's  nieces, 
who  were  neatly  and  plainly  dressed.  "  Do  girls  go  to 
Fraulein  Miiller  ?  " 

"  Girls !  Certainly  not,"  said  the  lady,  with  the 
expression  Germans  keep  for  the  insane  English  it  is 
their  fate  to  encounter  occasionally. 

"  But  that  is  what  I  want  to  know,  ...  a  dress- 
maker girls  go  to  ...  girls  with  a  small  allow- 
ance." 

"  I  am  afraid  I  cannot  help  you,"  said  the  lady 
stiffly.  "  I  know  nothing  about  the  dressmakers  girls 
employ." 

"  Perhaps  Miss  Brown  means  '  young  girls,' "  said 
one  of  the  nieces,  who  was  not  as  slow  in  the  uptake  as 
her  aunt,  and  it  turned  out  that  this  was  what  Miss 
Brown  did  mean ;  but  she  had  not  known  that  in 
everyday  life  Mddchen  without  an  adjective  usually 
means  a  servant.  She  had  heard  of  Das  Mddchen  aus 
der  Fremde  and  Der  Tod  und  das  Mddchen,  and 
blundered. 

I  once  made  a  German  exceedingly  angry  by 
saying  that  the  standard  of  comfort  was  higher  in 
England  than  in  Germany.  She  said  it  was  lower. 
When  you  have  lived  in  both  countries  and  with  both 
peoples  you  arrive  in  the  end  at  having  your  opinions, 
and  knowing  that  each  one  you  hold  will  be  disputed 
on  one  side  or  the  other.  "  Find  out  what  means 


i8o  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

Gemutlichkeit)  and  do  it  without  fail,"  says  Hans 
Breitmann,  but  Gemiltlichkeit  and  comfort  are  not 
quite  interchangeable  words.  Our  word  is  more 
material.  When  we  talk  of  English  comfort  we  are 
thinking  of  our  open  fires,  our  solid  food,  our  thick 
carpets,  and  our  well-drilled  smart-looking  servants. 
The  German  is  thinking  of  the  spiritual  atmosphere  in 
his  own  house,  the  absence,  as  he  says,  of  ceremony  and 
the  freedom  of  ideas.  He  talks  of  a  man  being 
gemiltlich  in  his  disposition,  kindly,  that  is,  and  easy 
going.  We  talk  of  a  house  being  comfortable,  and 
when  we  do  use  the  word  for  a  person  usually  mean 
that  she  is  rather  stout.  When  both  you  and  the 
German  have  decided  that  "  comfort "  for  the  moment 
shall  mean  material  comfort,  you  will  disagree  about 
what  is  necessary  to  yours.  You  must  have  your 
bathroom,  your  bacon  for  breakfast,  your  table  laid 
precisely,  your  meals  served  to  the  moment,  your 
young  women  in  black  or  your  staid  men  to  give  them 
to  you,  and  your  glowing  fires  in  as  many  rooms  as 
possible.  The  German  cares  for  none  of  these  things. 
He  would  rather  have  his  half-pound  of  odds  and  ends 
from  the  provision  shop  than  your  boiled  cod,  roast 
mutton,  and  apple-tart ;  he  wants  his  stove,  his  double 
windows,  his  good  coffee,  his  kraftige  Kost,  and  freedom 
to  smoke  in  every  corner  of  his  house.  He  is  never 
tired  of  telling  you  that,  though  you  have  more 
political  freedom  in  England,  you  are  groaning  under  a 
degree  of  social  tyranny  that  he  could  not  endure  for 
a  day.  The  Idealist,  quoted  in  a  former  chapter,  is 
for  ever  talking  of  the  "  hypocrisy  "  of  English  life,  and 
her  burning  anxiety  is  to  save  the  children  of  certain 
Russian  and  German  exiles  from  contact  with  it. 
Another  German  tells  you  that  our  system  of  collegiate 
life  for  women  would  not  suit  her  countryfolk,  because 


EXPENSES  OF  LIFE  181 

they  are  more  "  individual."  Each  one  likes  to  choose 
her  own  rooms,  and  live  as  she  pleases.  The  next 
German  has  suffered  torments  in  London  because  he 
had  to  sit  down  to  certain  meals  at  certain  hours 
instead  of  eating  anything  he  fancied  at  any  time  he 
felt  hungry,  and  I  suppose  it  is  only  your  British 
Heuchelei  that  leads  you  to  smile  politely  instead  of 
adding,  "  As  the  beasts  of  the  field  do."  But  I  am 
always  mazed,  as  the  Cornish  say,  when  Germans  talk 
of  their  freedom  from  convention.  In  Hamburg  I  was 
once  seriously  rebuked  by  an  old  friend  for  carrying  a 
book  through  the  streets  that  was  not  wrapped  up  in 
paper.  In  Hamburg  that  is  one  of  the  things  people 
don't  do.  In  Mainz  and  in  many  other  German  towns 
there  are  certain  streets  where  one  side,  for  reasons  no 
one  can  explain,  is  taboo  at  certain  hours  of  the  day ; 
not  of  the  night,  but  of  the  day.  You  may  go  to  a 
music  shop  at  midday  to  buy  a  sonata,  and  find, 
if  you  are  a  girl,  that  you  have  committed  a  crime. 
The  intercourse  between  young  people  outside  their 
homes  is  hedged  round  with  convention.  German 
titles  of  address  are  so  absurdly  formal  that  Germans 
laugh  at  them  themselves.  Their  ceremonies  in  con- 
nection with  anniversaries  and  family  events  bristle 
with  convention,  and  offer  pitfalls  at  every  step  to  the 
stranger  or  the  blunderer.  It  is  true  that  men  do 
not  dress  for  dinner  every  day,  and  wax  indignant  over 
the  necessity  of  doing  so  for  the  theatre  in  England ; 
but  there  are  various  occasions  when  they  wear  evening 
dress  in  broad  daylight,  and  an  Englishman  considers 
that  an  uncomfortable  convention.  The  truth  is,  that 
these  questions  of  comfort  and  ceremonial  are  not 
questions  that  should  be  discussed  in  the  hostile 
dogmatic  tone  adopted  in  both  countries  by  those  who 
only  know  their  own.  The  ceremonies  that  are 


1 82  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

foreign  to  you  impress  you,  while  those  you  have  been 
used  to  all  your  life  have  become  a  second  nature.  An 
Englishwoman  feels  downright  uncomfortable  in  her 
high  stuff  gown  at  night,  and  a  German  lady  brought 
up  at  one  of  the  great  German  Courts  told  me  that 
when  she  stayed  in  an  English  country  house  and  put 
on  what  she  called  a  ball  dress  for  dinner  every  night, 
she  felt  like  a  fool. 

To  come  back  to  questions  of  expenditure  so 
intimately  related  to  questions  of  comfort,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  in  an  English  household  there  are  two 
dinners  a  day :  one  early  for  the  servants  and  children, 
and  one  late  for  the  grown-ups  ;  and  solid  dinners  cost 
money  even  in  England,  where  at  present  there  is  no 
meat  famine.  When  Germans  dine  late  they  don't  also 
dine  early,  even  where  there  are  children ;  while  the 
kitchen  dinner,  that  meal  of  supreme  importance  here, 
is  eaten  when  the  family  has  finished  theirs,  and  is  as 
informal  as  the  meal  a  bird  makes  of  berries.  In  a 
German  household,  living  on  a  small  income,  nothing  is 
wasted, — not  fuel,  not  food,  not  cleaning  materials,  as  far 
as  possible  not  time.  The  tiichtige  Hausfrau  would  be 
made  miserable  by  having  to  pay  and  feed  a  woman 
who  put  on  gala  clothes  at  midday,  and  did  no  work  to 
soil  them  after  that. 

"Two  girls,"  I  once  heard  a  German  say  to  an 
Englishwoman  who  had  just  described  her  own  modest 
household  which  she  ran,  she  said,  with  two  maids. 
"  Two  girls  ...  for  you  and  your  husband.  But 
what,  I  ask  you,  does  the  second  one  do  ?  " 

"  She  cleans  the  rooms  and  waits  at  table  and  opens 
the  door,"  said  the  Englishwoman. 

"  All  that  can  one  girl  do  just  as  well.  I  assure  you 
it  is  so.  There  cannot  possibly  be  work  in  your  house- 
hold for  two  girls.  You  have  told  me  how  quietly  you 


EXPENSES  OF  LIFE  183 

live,  and  I  know  what  English  cooking  is,  if  you  can 
call  it  cooking." 

"  You  see,  there  must  be  someone  to  open  the  door." 

"  Why  could  one  girl  not  answer  the  door,  .  .  . 
unless  she  was  washing.  Then  you  would  naturally 
go  yourself." 

"  But  it  wouldn't  be  natural  in  England,"  said  the 
Englishwoman.  "  It  would  be  odd.  Besides,  if  you 
only  have  one  servant,  she  can't  dress  for  lunch." 

"Why  should  she  dress  for  lunch?"  asked  the 
German.  "  My  Auguste  is  a  pearl,  but  she  only  dresses 
when  we  have  Gesellschaft.  Then  she  wears  a  plaid 
blouse  and  a  garnet  brooch  that  I  gave  her  last 
Christmas,  and  she  looks  very  well  in  them.  But  every 
day  .  .  .  and  for  lunch,  when  half  the  work  of  the  day 
is  still  to  be  done.  .  .  .  What,  then,  does  your  second 
girl  do  in  the  afternoons  ?  " 

"  She  brings  tea  and  answers  the  door." 

"Always  the  door.  But  your  husband  is  not  a 
doctor  or  a  dentist.  Why  do  so  many  people  come 
to  your  door  that  you  need  a  whole  girl  to  attend  to 
them  ?  " 

"  Oh  !  They  don't,"  said  the  Englishwoman,  getting 
rather  worn.  "  There  are  very  few,  really.  It's  the 
custom." 

"  Ah ! "  said  the  German,  with  a  long  deep  breath 
of  satisfaction.  "  So  are  you  English  .  .  .  such  slaves 
to  custom.  Gott  sei  Dank  that  I  do  not  live  in  a 
country  where  I  should  have  to  keep  a  girl  in  idleness 
for  the  sake  of  the  door.  With  us  a  door  is  a  door. 
Anyone  who  happens  to  be  near  opens  it." 

"  I  know  they  do,"  said  the  Englishwoman,  "  and 
when  a  servant  comes  she  expects  you  to  say  Guten 
Tag  before  you  ask  whether  her  mistress  is  at 
home  ? " 


1 84  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

"Certainly.  It  is  a  politeness.  We  are  a  polite 
nation." 

"  And  once,  when  I  had  just  come  back  from 
Germany,  I  said  Good-morning  to  an  English  butler 
before  I  asked  if  his  mistress  was  at  home,  and  he 
thought  I  was  mad.  We  each  have  our  own  conven- 
tions. That's  the  truth  of  the  matter." 

"  Not  at  all,"  said  the  German.  "  The  truth  of  the 
matter  is,  that  the  English  are  extremly  conventional, 
and  follow  each  other  as  sheep  do ;  but  the  German 
does  what  pleases  him,  without  asking  first  whether  his 
neighbour  does  likewise." 

This  is  what  the  German  really  believes,  and  you  agree 
or  disagree  with  him  according  to  the  phase  of  life  you 
look  at  when  he  is  speaking.  You  find  that  when  he 
comes  to  England  he  honestly  feels  checked  at  every 
turn  by  our  unwritten  laws,  while  when  you  go  to 
Germany  you  wonder  how  he  can  submit  so  patiently 
to  the  pettiness  and  multiplicity  of  his  written  ones. 
He  vaguely  feels  the  pressure  and  criticism  of  your 
indefinite  code  of  manners ;  you  think  his  elaborate 
system  of  titles,  introductions,  and  celebrations  rather 
childish  and  extremely  troublesome.  If  you  have  what 
the  English  call  manners  you  will  take  the  greatest 
care  not  to  let  him  find  this  out,  and  in  course  of  time, 
however  much  you  like  him  on  the  whole,  you  will 
lose  your  patience  a  little  with  the  individual  you  are 
bound  to  meet,  the  individual  who  has  England  on  his 
nerves,  and  exhausts  his  energy  and  eloquence  in  inform- 
ing you  of  your  country's  shortcomings.  They  are 
legion,  and  indeed  leave  no  room  for  the  smallest  virtue, 
so  that  in  the  end  you  can  only  wonder  solemnly  why 
such  a  nation  ever  came  to  be  a  nation  at  all. 

"  That  is  easily  answered,"  says  your  Anglophobe. 
"  England  has  arrived  where  she  is  by  seizing  every- 


EXPENSES  OF  LIFE  185 

thing  she  can  lay  hands  on.  Now  it  is  going  to  be 
our  turn." 

You  express  your  interest  in  the  future  of  Germany 
as  seen  by  your  friend,  and  he  shows  you  a  map  of 
Europe  which  he  has  himself  marked  with  red  ink  all 
round  the  empire  as  it  will  be  a  few  years  hence. 
There  is  not  much  Europe  outside  the  red  line. 

"  But  you  haven't  taken  Great  Britain,"  you  say, 
rather  hurt  at  being  left  out  in  this  way. 

"We  don't  want  it  ...  otherwise,  .  .  .  but  India 
...  possibly  Australia."  He  waves  his  hands. 

You  look  at  him  pensively,  and  suddenly  see  one  of 
the  great  everyday  distances  between  your  countryfolk 
and  his.  You  think  of  a  French  novel  that  has  amused 
you  lately,  because  the  parents  of  the  heroine  objected 
to  her  marriage  with  the  hero  on  grounds  you  were 
quite  incapable  of  understanding.  The  young  man's 
work  was  in  Cochin-China,  and  the  young  lady's  father 
and  mother  did  not  wish  her  to  go  so  far.  Never  in  your 
life  have  you  heard  anyone  raise  such  a  trivial  difficulty. 
You  live  in  a  dull  sober  street  mostly  inhabited  by  dull 
sober  people,  but  there  is  not  one  house  in  it  that  is  not 
linked  by  interest  or  affection,  often  doubly  linked,  with 
some  uttermost  end  of  the  earth.  You  can  hardly  find 
an  English  family  that  has  not  one  member  or  more  in 
far  countries,  and  so  the  common  talk  of  English  people 
in  all  classes  travels  the  width  of  the  world  in  the  wake 
of  those  dear  to  them.  But  in  1900  only  22,309 
Germans  out  of  a  population  of  60,400,000  emigrated 
from  Germany,  and  these,  says  Mr.  Eltzbacher,  whose 
figures  I  am  quoting,  were  more  than  counterbalanced 
by  immigration  into  Germany  from  Austria,  Russia,  and 
Italy.  It  is  true  that  the  population  of  Germany  is 
increasing  with  immense  rapidity,  and  that  the  question 
of  expansion  is  becoming  a  burning  one;  but  it  is  a 


1 86  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

question  quite  outside  the  strictly  home  politics  of  this 
unpretending  chronicle.  We  are  only  concerned  with 
the  obvious  fact  that  Germans  settle  in  far  countries  in 
much  smaller  numbers  than  we  do,  and  that  those  who 
go  abroad  mostly  choose  the  British  flag  and  avoid 
their  own.  It  does  not  occur  as  easily  to  a  German  as 
to  an  Englishman  that  he  may  better  his  fortunes  in 
another  part  of  the  world,  or  if  he  is  an  official  that  he 
will  apply  for  a  post  in  Asia  or  Africa.  He  wants  to 
stay  near  the  Rhine  or  the  Spree  where  he  was  born, 
and  to  bring  up  his  children  there ;  and  with  the  help 
of  the  State  and  his  wife  he  contrives  to  do  this  on  an 
extraordinary  small  income.  The  State,  as  we  have 
seen,  almost  takes  his  children  off  his  hands  from  the  time 
they  are  six  years  old.  It  brings  them  up  for  nothing, 
or  next  to  nothing ;  in  cases  of  need  it  partially  feeds 
and  clothes  them,  it  even  washes  them.  Some  English 
humorist  has  said  that  a  German  need  only  give  him- 
self the  trouble  to  be  born ;  his  government  does  the 
rest.  But  first  his  mother  and  then  his  wife  do  a  good 
deal.  They  are  like  the  woman  in  Proverbs  who 
worked  willingly  with  her  hands,  rose  while  it  was 
night,  saw  well  to  the  ways  of  her  household,  and  ate 
not  the  bread  of  idleness. 

I  have  before  me  the  household  accounts  of  several 
German  families  living  on  what  we  should  call  small 
incomes ;  and  they  show  more  exactly  than  any 
vague  praise  can  do  the  prodigies  of  thrift  accomplished 
by  people  obliged  to  economise,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  present  a  respectable  appearance.  The  first  one  is 
the  budget  of  a  small  official  living  with  a  wife  and  two 
children  in  a  little  town  where  a  flat  on  the  fourth  or 
fifth  floor  can  be  had  at  a  low  rent : — 


EXPENSES  OF  LIFE  187 

£     s.     d. 

Rent         .            .            .  .  20      o      o 

Fuel         .            .            .  .  3     10      o 

Light        .            .            .  .  I     10      o 

Clothes  for  the  man          .  .  .300 

Clothes  for  the  wife          .  .  .200 

Clothes  for  the  children   .  .  .100 

Boots  for  the  man            .  .  .100 

Boots  for  the  wife  and  children   .  .150 

Repairs  to  boots  .             .  .  .        o     17      6 

Washing  and  house  repairs  .  .300 

Doctor     .            .            .  .  .200 

Newspaper           .            .  .  .        o     12      o 

Charwoman          .             .  .  .300 

Taxes       .            .            .  .  .         2     10      o 

Postage    .             .             .  .  .140 

Insurances            .             .  .  .         2     10      o 

Amusements         .             .  .  .300 

Housekeeping      .            .  .  .       45      o      o 

Sundries  .            .            .  .  .316 


;£lOO  O  O 

The  fuel  allowed  in  this  budget  consists  of  30  cwt.  of 
Steinkohlen  at  I  mark  15  pf.  the  cwt.,  30  cwt.  of  Braun- 
kohlen  at  70  pf.  the  cwt,  and  4  cwt.  of  kindling  at  I  mark 
10  pf.  the  cwt.  This  quantity,  3  tons  without  the 
kindling,  would  have  to  be  used  most  sparingly  to  last 
through  a  long  rigorous  German  winter,  as  well  as  for 
cooking  and  washing  in  summer.  The  amount  set 
apart  for  lights  allows  for  one  lamp  in  the  living  room 
and  two  small  ones  in  the  passage  and  kitchen.  The 
man  may  have  a  new  suit  every  year,  one  year  in  winter 
and  the  next  year  in  summer,  and  his  suit  may  cost 
£2,  I  os.  His  great-coat  also  is  to  cost  £2,  ios.,  but 
he  can't  have  a  new  suit  the  year  he  buys  one,  and  it 
should  last  him  at  least  four  years.  The  ten  shillings 
left  is  for  all  his  other  clothes  except  boots,  and  pre- 
sumably for  all  his  personal  expenses,  including  tobacco, 
so  he  had  better  not  spend  it  all  at  once.  His  wife 


1 88  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

performs  greater  miracles  still,  for  she  has  to  buy  a 
winter  gown  and  a  summer  gown,  a  hat  and  gloves,  for 
her  £2.  These  are  not  fancy  figures.  The  miracle  is 
performed  by  tens  of  thousands  of  German  women  every 
year.  They  buy  a  few  yards  of  cheap  stuff  and  get  in 
a  sewing-woman  to  make  it  up,  for  as  a  rule  they  are 
not  nearly  as  clever  and  capable  as  Englishwomen 
about  making  things  for  themselves.  Your  English 
maid-servant  will  buy  a  blouse  length  at  a  sale  for  a 
few  pence,  make  it  up  smartly,  and  wear  it  out  in  a 
month  of  Sundays.  Your  German  she-official  will  have 
a  blouse  made  for  her,  and  it  will  probably  be  hideous ; 
but  she  will  wear  it  so  carefully  that  it  lasts  her  two 
years.  Under-raiment  she  will  never  want  to  buy,  as 
she  will  have  brought  a  life-long  supply  to  her  home 
at  marriage.  You  easily  figure  the  children  who  are 
dressed  on  twenty  marks  a  year,  the  girl  in  a  shoddy 
tartan  made  in  a  fashion  of  fifty  years  ago  with  the 
"waist"  hooked  behind,  and  the  boy  in  some  snuff- 
coloured  mixture  floridly  braided.  But  the  interesting 
revelation  of  this  small  official  budget  is  in  its  carefully 
planned  fare  made  out  for  a  fortnight  in  summer  and 
a  fortnight  in  winter.  In  winter  the  Hausfrau  may 
spend  about  1 73.  a  week  on  her  food  and  in  summer  195. 
That  leaves  only  2s.  a  month  for  the  extra  days  of  the 
month,  and  for  small  expenses,  such  as  soda,  matches, 
blacking,  and  condiments.  Breakfast  may  cost  sixpence 
a  day,  and  for  this  there  is  to  be  |  litre  of  milk,  4  small 
white  rolls,  £  Ib.  rye  bread,  2  oz.  of  butter,  I  oz.  of 
coffee.  Nothing  is  set  down  for  sugar,  and  I  think  that 
most  German  families  of  this  class  would  not  use  sugar, 
and  would  eat  their  bread  without  butter.  On  Sunday 
they  have  a  goose  for  dinner,  and  pay  45.  6d.  for  it,  and 
though  43.  6d.  is  not  much  to  pay  for  a  goose,  it  seems 
an  extravagant  dish  for  this  family,  until  you  discover 


EXPENSES  OF  LIFE  189 

that  they  are  still  dining  on  it  on  Wednesday.  Not 
only  has  the  Hausfrau  brought  home  this  costly  bird., 
but  she  has  laid  in  a  whole  pound  of  lard  to  roast  with 
it,  white  bread  for  stuffing,  and  cabbage  for  a  vegetable. 
Pudding  is  not  considered  necessary  after  goose,  and 
for  supper  there  is  bread  and  milk  for  the  children,  and 
bread,  butter,  cheese,  and  beer  for  the  parents.  On  Mon- 
day they  have  a  rest  from  goose,  and  dine  on  gehacktes 
Schweinefleisch.  German  butchers  sell  raw  minced  meat 
very  cheaply,  and  the  Hausfrau  would  probably  get  as 
much  as  she  wanted  for  three-halfpence.  On  Tuesday 
they  get  back  to  the  goose,  and  have  a  hash  of  the 
wings,  neck,  and  liver  with  potatoes.  For  supper,  rice 
cooked  with  milk  and  cinnamon.  Germans  use  cinna- 
mon rather  as  the  Spaniards  use  garlic.  They  seem  to 
think  it  improves  everything,  and  they  eat  quantities  of 
milky  rice  strewn  with  it.  On  Wednesday  my  family 
has  soup  for  dinner,  a  solid  soup  made  of  goose,  rice, 
and  a  pennyworth  of  carrots.  For  supper  there  is 
sausage,  bread,  and  beer.  By  the  way,  this  official  is 
not  really  representative,  for  he  spends  nothing  on 
tobacco,  and  only  a  penny  every  other  day  on  beer 
He  cannot  have  been  a  Bavarian.  His  wife  gives  him 
cod  with  mustard  sauce  on  Thursday,  Sauerkraut  and 
shin  of  beef  on  Friday,  and  on  Saturday  lentil  soup 
with  sausages,  an  excellent  dish  when  properly  cooked 
for  those  who  want  solid  nourishing  food.  On  the 
following  Sunday  3  pounds  of  beef  appears,  and  potato 
dumplings  with  stewed  fruit,  another  good  German 
mixture  if  the  dumplings  are  as  light  as  they  should  be 
The  husband  has  them  warmed  up  for  supper  next  day 
One  day  he  has  bacon  and  vegetables  for  dinner,  and 
another  day  only  apple  sauce  and  pancakes,  but  at 
every  midday  meal  throughout  the  fortnight  he  has 
carefully  planned  food  on  which  his  wife  spends  con- 


190  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

siderable  time  and  trouble.  He  never  comes  home 
from  his  work  on  a  winter's  day  to  have  a  mutton  bone 
and  watery  potatoes  set  before  him.  In  summer  the 
bill  of  fare  provides  soups  made  with  wine,  milk,  or  cider ; 
sometimes  there  are  curds  for  supper,  and  if  they  have 
a  chicken,  rice  and  stewed  fruit  are  eaten  with  it.  But 
a  chicken  only  costs  this  Hausfrau  i  mark  20  pf.,  so  it 
must  have  been  a  small  one.  I  have  often  bought 
pigeons  for  25pf.  apiece  in  Germany,  and  stuffed  in  the 
Bavarian  way  with  egg  and  bread  crumbs  they  are 
good  eating.  Fruit  is  extremely  cheap  and  plentiful 
in  many  parts  of  Germany,  but  not  everywhere.  We 
have  Heine's  word  for  it  that  the  plums  grown  by  the 
wayside  between  Jena  and  Weimar  are  good,  for  most 
of  us  know  his  story  of  his  first  interview  with  Goethe ; 
how  he  had  looked  forward  to  the  meeting  with  ecstasy 
and  reflection,  and  how  when  he  was  face  to  face  with 
the  great  man  all  he  found  to  say  was  a  word  in  praise 
of  the  plums  he  had  eaten  as  he  walked.  In  the  fruit- 
growing districts  most  of  the  roads  are  set  with  an 
avenue  of  fruit  trees,  and  so  law-abiding  are  the  boys 
of  Germany,  and  so  plentiful  is  fruit  in  its  season,  that 
no  one  seems  to  steal  from  them.  I  have  talked  with 
elderly  Germans,  who  remembered  buying  3  pounds 
of  cherries  for  6  kreuzers,  a  little  more  than  a  penny, 
when  they  were  boys.  But  those  days  are  over.  The 
small  sweet-water  grapes  from  the  vineyards  of  South 
Germany  are  to  be  had  for  the  asking  where  they  are 
grown,  and  apricots  are  plentiful  in  some  districts,  and 
the  little  golden  plums  called  Mirabel/en  that  are  dried 
in  quantities  and  make  the  best  winter  compote  there 
is.  When  I  see  English  grocers'  shops  loaded  up  with 
dried  American  apples  and  apricots  that  are  not  worth 
eating,  however  carefully  they  are  cooked,  I  always 
wonder  why  we  do  not  import  Mirabellen  instead. 


EXPENSES  OF  LIFE  191 

Sweetbreads  in  the  Berlin  markets  were  about  I  mark 
10  pf.  each  last  year,  small  tongues  were  I  mark  10  pf. 
Morscheln,  a  poor  kind  of  fungus  much  used  in  Germany, 
were  65  pf.  a  pound,  real  mushrooms  were  I  mark  50  pf., 
and  the  dried  ones  used  for  flavouring  sauces  were  the 
same  price.  Butter  and  milk  are  usually  about  the 
same  price  as  with  us,  but  eggs  are  cheaper.  You  get 
twenty  for  a  mark  still  in  spring,  and  I  remember 
making  an  English  plumcake  once  in  a  Bavarian  village 
and  being  charged  6  pf.  for  the  three  eggs  I  used.  A 
rye  loaf  weighing  4  pounds  costs  50  pf.,  the  little  white 
rolls  cost  3  pf.  each.  In  Berlin  last  year  vegetables 
were  nearly  as  dear  as  in  London,  but  in  many  parts 
of  Germany  they  are  much  cheaper.  I  know  of  one 
housewife  who  fed  her  family  largely  on  vegetables,  and 
would  not  spend  more  than  10  pf.  a  day  on  them,  but 
she  lived  in  a  small  country  town  where  green  stuff 
was  a  drug  in  the  market.  Asparagus  is  cheaper  than 
here,  for  it  costs  35  pf.  to  40  pf.  a  pound,  and  is  eaten 
in  such  quantities  that  even  an  asparagus  lover  gets 
tired  of  it.  Meat  has  risen  terribly  in  price  of  late 
years.  In  the  open  market  you  can  get  fillet  of  beef 
for  i  mark  60  pf.,  sirloin  for  90  pf.,  good  cuts  of  mutton 
for  90  pf.  to  I  mark,  and  veal  for  I  mark,  but  all  these 
prices  are  higher  at  a  butcher's  shop.  Fillet  of  beef, 
for  instance,  is  2  marks  40  pf.  a  pound  there. 

The  budget  of  a  family  living  on  £250  a  year  does 
not  call  for  so  much  comment  as  the  smaller  one, 
because  £250  is  a  fairly  comfortably  income  in 
Germany.  Either  a  schoolmaster  or  a  soldier  must 
have  risen  in  his  profession  before  he  gets  it;  but 
the  following  estimate  is  made  out  for  a  business 
man  who  does  not  get  a  house  free  or  any  other  aid 
from  outside  : — 


192  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

£     s.     d. 

Rent      .            .            .  .  .       50      o      o 

Fuel       .            .            .  .  7     10      o 

Light      .            .            .  .  .500 

Clothes —husband          .  .  .600 

„         wife     .             .  .  .400 

,,         children           .  .  .         2     10      o 

Shoes     ...  .400 

School  fees         .            .  .  .500 

Washing             .             .  .  .500 

Repairs  to  linen              .  .  2     10      o 

Doctor  and  dentist          .  .  .500 

Newspapers  and  magazines  .  .200 

Servant's  wages              .  .  .900 
Servant's  insurance  and  Christmas  present     200 

Taxes     .            .            .  .  .600 

Postage  .             .             .  .  .         I     lo      O 

Insurances          .            .  .  .500 

Housekeeping    .            .  .  .       90      o      o 

Amusements  and  travelling  .  25      o      o 

Christmas  and  presents .  .  .1000 

Sundries            .            .  .  .300 


£250      o      o 

On  examining  this  budget  it  will  occur  to  most 
people  that  the  poor  Hausfrau  might  spend  a  little 
more  on  her  clothes  and  a  little  less  on  her  presents, 
and  as  a  matter  of  fact  even  in  Germany,  where 
Christmas  is  a  burden  as  well  as  a  pleasure,  this  would 
be  done.  The  next  budget  is  the  most  interesting, 
because  it  is  not  an  ideal  one  drawn  up  for  anyone's 
guidance,  but  is  taken  without  the  alteration  of  one 
penny  from  the  beautifully  kept  account  book  of  a 
friend.  There  were  no  children  in  the  family,  so 
nothing  appears  for  school  fees  or  children's  clothes. 
The  household  consisted  of  husband  and  wife  and  one 
maid.  They  lived  in  one  of  the  largest  and  dearest  of 
German  cities,  and  the  husband's  work  as  well  as  their 
social  position  forced  certain  expenses  on  them.  For 


EXPENSES  OF  LIFE 


193 


instance,  they  had  to  live  in  a  good  street  and  on  the 
ground  floor ;  and  they  had  to  entertain  a  good  deal. 

M.  Pf. 

Bread  .  .  .  .  .180  — 

Meat  .  .  .  .  310  95 

Fish  and  poultry  .  .  .  98  55 

Aufschnitt  .  .  .  .  67  25 

Potatoes  .  .  .  .  19  10 

Vegetables  .  .  .  .  .  no  50 

Fruit  .  .  .  .  87  95 

Eggs 83  90 

Milk  .  .  .  .  .  121  85 

Butter  ...  .  195  — 

Lard  .  .  .  .  36  55 

Flour,  Gries,  etc.  .  .  .  .  25  60 

Sugar  and  treacle  .  .  .  66  20 

Groceries  .  .  .  .  .  22  50 

Coffee 67  — 

Tea  and  chocolate  .  .  .  17  95 

Drinks  .....  159  10 

Lights 30  55 

Washing        .  .  .  .  .       126  80 

Laundress     .  .  .  .  .         32  25 

Ice     .  .  .  .  .  .         10  20 

Coal  and  wood          .  .  .  .       170  10 

Turf  and  other  fuel   .  .  .  .       159  25 

Matches        .  .  .  .  .3  — 

Cleaning        .  .  .  .  .60  — 

Furniture       .  .  .  .  •          4  55 

Repairs          .  .  .  .  .          19  50 

Crockery  and  kitchenware     .  .  -38  — 

Repairs          ...  .49  — 

China  and  glass         .  .  .  •         3°      5 

Clothes — husband     .  .  .  .       181  20 

wife  .  .  452  85 

Boots — husband  .  .  .  .  24  10 

„  wife 60  35 

Linen  .  .  .  .  17  5 

Charities  .  .  .  .  .  232  20 

Rent  .  ...  2150  — 

Rent  of  husband's  share  of  professional 

rooms 318  70 

Carry  forward     5839  45 


194 


HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 


M.     Pf. 

Brought 

forward 

5839    45 

Fares 

46    10 

Books 

64    25 

Writing  materials 

30    50 

Charwoman  and  tips 

85    95 

Wages  and  servants'  presents 

335    50 

Papers 

35    25 

Carpenter 

125    - 

Tobacco  and  cigars   . 

165    90 

Sundries 

39    35 

Photography  and  fishing  tackle 

141     10 

Music  lessons 

15    10 

Medicine 

13    80 

Hairdresser   . 

2     40 

Presents  —  family 

291    75 

,,         friends      . 

119    — 

Amusements 

137    25 

Travelling 

736    40 

Stamps 

99    65 

Entertaining  (at  Home) 

232    — 

Charities1 

24    — 

Subscriptions 

119    80 

Fire  insurance 

12      30 

Old  age  insurance      . 

10    40 

8722      20 

There  are  some  interesting  points  about  this  budget 
as  compared  with  an  English  one  of  £436.  It  will 
be  seen  that  although  meat  is  so  dear  in  Germany 
the  weekly  butcher's  bill  for  three  people  was  only  6s., 
fish  and  poultry  together  only  2s.,  and  the  ham  sausage, 
etc.  from  the  provision  shop  under  is.  6d.  a  week. 
The  washing  bill  for  the  year  is  low,  because  nearly 
everything  was  washed  at  home,  and  dear  as  fuel  is  in 
Germany  this  household  spent  about  £16,  where  an 
English  one  presenting  the  same  front  would  spend 
£20  to  £25.  Observe,  too,  the  amount  spent  on 
servants'  wages  by  people  who  lived  in  a  large  charm- 

1  Probably  private  charities. 


EXPENSES  OF  LIFE  195 

ingly  furnished  flat,  and  had  a  long  visiting  list.  The 
wife,  too,  a  very  pretty  woman  and  always  well  dressed, 
spent  much  less  on  her  toilet  than  anyone  would  have 
guessed  from  its  finish  and  variety,  for  she  came  from 
one  of  the  German  cities  where  women  do  dress  well. 
There  is  nearly  as  much  difference  amongst  German 
cities  in  this  respect  as  there  is  amongst  nations. 
Berlin  is  far  behind  either  Hamburg  or  Frankfurt,  for 
instance.  The  middle-class  women  of  Berlin  have  an 
extraordinary  affection  all  through  the  summer  season 
,for  collarless  blouses,  bastard  tartans,  and  white  cotton 
gloves  with  thumbs  but  no  fingers.  In  England  the 
force  of  custom  drives  women  to  uncover  their  necks  in 
the  evening,  whether  it  becomes  them  or  not,  and  it  is 
not  a  custom  for  which  sensible  elderly  women  can 
have  much  to  say.  But  pneumonia  blouses  have  never 
been  universal  wear  in  any  country,  and  it  is  impossible 
to  explain  their  apparently  irresistible  attraction  for  all 
ages  and  sizes  of  women  in  the  Berlin  electric  cars. 
Those  who  were  not  wearing  pneumonia  blouses  a  year 
ago  were  wearing  Reform- Kleider,  shapeless  ill-cut 
garments  usually  of  grey  tweed.  The  oddest  combina- 
tion, and  quite  a  common  one,  was  a  sack-like  Reform- 
Kleid,  with  a  saucy  little  coloured  bolero  worn  over  it, 
fingerless  gloves,  and  a  madly  tilted  beflowered  hat 
perched  on  a  dowdy  coiffure.  These  are  rude  remarks 
to  make  about  the  looks  of  foreign  ladies,  but  the 
Reform- Kleid  is  just  as  hideous  and  absurd  in  Germany 
now  as  our  bilious  green  draperies  were  on  the  wrong 
people  twenty-five  years  ago,  and  I  am  sure  every 
foreigner  who  came  to  England  must  have  laughed  at 
them.  On  the  whole,  I  would  say  of  German  women 
in  general  what  a  Frenchwoman  once  said  to  me  in 
the  most  matter-of-fact  tone  of  Englishwomen,  Elles 
s'habillent  si  mat. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 
HOSPITALITY 

IF  a  German  cannot  afford  to  ask  you  to  dinner  he 
asks  you  to  supper,  and  makes  his  supper  inviting. 
At  least,  he  does  if  he  is  sensible,  and  if  he  lives  where 
an  inexpensive  form  of  entertainment  is  in  vogue. 
But  even  in  Germany  people  are  not  sensible  every- 
where. The  headmaster  of  a  school  in  a  small  East 
Prussian  town  told  me  that  his  colleagues,  the  higher 
officials  and  other  persons  of  local  importance,  felt 
bound  to  entertain  their  friends  at  least  once  a  year, 
and  that  their  way  was  to  invite  everyone  together  to 
a  dinner  given  at  the  chief  hotel  in  the  town ;  and 
that  to  do  this  a  family  would  stint  itself  for  months 
beforehand.  He  spoke  with  knowledge,  so  I  record 
what  he  said ;  but  I  have  never  been  amongst  Germans 
who  were  hospitable  in  this  painful  way.  Hotels  are 
used  for  large  entertainments,  just  as  they  are  in 
England,  but  most  people  receive  their  friends  in  their 
homes,  and  only  hire  servants  for  some  special  function, 
like  a  wedding  or  a  public  dinner. 

The  form  of  hospitality  most  popular  in  England 
now,  the  visit  of  two  or  three  days'  duration,  is  hardly 
known  in  Germany,  and  I  believe  that  they  have  not 
begun  yet  to  supply  their  guests  with  small  cakes  of 
soap  labelled  "  Visitors,"  and  meant  to  last  for  a  week- 
end but  not  longer.  In  towns  no  one  dreams  of  having 

196 


HOSPITALITY  197 

a  constant  succession  of  staying  guests,  and  either  in 
town  or  country  when  a  German  family  expects  a 
guest  at  all  it  is  more  often  than  not  for  the  whole 
summer  or  winter.  You  do  not  find  a  German  girl 
arranging,  as  her  English  cousin  will,  for  a  round  of 
visits,  fitting  in  dates,  writing  here  and  there  to  know 
if  people  can  take  her  in,  and  by  the  same  post 
answering  those  who  are  planning  a  pilgrimage  for 
themselves  and  wish  to  be  taken.  A  visit  in  Germany 
is  not  the  flighty  affair  it  is  with  us. 

"  This  winter,"  says  your  friend,  "  my  niece  from 
Posen  will  be  with  us,"  and  presently  the  niece  arrives 
and  stays  about  three  months.  There  is  rarely  more 
than  one  spare  room  on  a  flat,  and  that  is  often  a  room 
not  easily  spared.  In  country  houses  there  are  rows 
of  rooms,  but  they  are  not  filled  by  an  everlasting 
procession  of  guests  in  the  English  way.  When  you 
stay  in  a  country  house  at  home  you  wonder  how  your 
hosts  ever  get  anything  done,  and  whether  they  don't 
sometimes  wish  they  had  a  few  days  to  themselves. 
To  be  sure,  English  hosts  go  about  their  business  and 
leave  you  to  yours,  more  than  Germans  think  polite. 
I  once  spent  six  weeks,  quite  an  ordinary  visit  as  to 
length,  with  some  friends  who  had  several  grown-up 
children.  It  was  a  most  cheerful  friendly  household, 
but  one  day  I  got  into  a  corner  near  the  stove,  rather 
glad  for  a  change  to  be  myself  for  a  while  with  a  novel 
for  company.  When  I  had  been  there  a  little  time 
the  second  daughter  looked  in  and  at  once  apologised. 

"  Mamma  sent  me  to  see,"  she  explained, — "  she 
feared  you  were  by  yourself." 

It  is  not  easy  to  tell  your  German  hosts  that  you 
like  and  wish  to  be  by  yourself  sometimes  ;  and  if  you 
say  that  you  are  used  to  it  in  England  you  won't 
impress  them.  The  English  are  so  inhospitable  and 


198  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

unfriendly,  they  will  say,  for  that  is  one  of  the  many 
popular  myths  that  are  believed  about  us.  I  have 
been  told  of  a  German  lady  who  has  lived  here  most 
of  her  life,  and  complains  to  her  German  friends  that 
she  has  never  spent  a  night  under  an  English  roof; 
but  then,  she  chooses  to  associate  exclusively  with 
Germans,  whose  roofs  she  refuses  to  regard  as  English 
ones,  even  when  they  are  in  Kensington ;  and  she 
cherishes  such  an  invincible  prejudice  against  the  born 
English  that  she  lives  amongst  them  year  after  year 
without  making  a  friend.  It  would  be  quite  simple  to 
perform  the  same  feat  in  Paris,  or  even  in  Berlin, 
although  there  you  would  not  have  such  a  large  foreign 
colony  to  stand  between  you  and  the  detestable  natives. 
The  real  difficulty  in  writing  about  German  hospit- 
ality is  to  find  and  express  the  ways  in  which  it  differs 
from  our  own ;  and  certainly  these  lie  little  in  qualities 
of  kindness  and  generosity.  Amongst  both  nations,  if 
you  have  a  friendly  disposition  you  will  find  friends 
easily,  and  receive  kindness  on  all  sides.  Perhaps,  as 
one  concrete  instance  is  worth  many  assertions,  I  may 
describe  a  visit  I  paid  many  years  ago  to  a  family  who 
invited  me  because  a  marriage  had  recently  connected 
us.  I  had  seen  some  of  the  family  at  the  wedding,  and 
had  been  surprised  to  receive  a  warm  invitation,  not  for 
a  week-end  and  a  cake  of  visitors'  soap,  but  for  the  rest 
of  the  winter ;  six  weeks  or  two  months  at  least.  The 
family  living  at  home  consisted  of  the  parents,  a  grown- 
up son  and  two  grown-up  daughters.  Some  of  them 
met  me  at  the  station,  for  the  German  does  not  breathe 
who  would  let  a  guest  arrive  or  depart  alone.  Your 
friends  often  give  you  flowers  when  you  arrive,  and 
invariably  when  you  go  away.  I  cannot  remember 
about  the  flowers  on  this  occasion,  but  I  remember 
vividly  that  the  day  after  my  arrival  the  two  married 


HOSPITALITY  199 

daughters  living  in  the  same  town  both  called  on  me 
and  brought  me  flowers.  Week  after  week,  too,  they 
made  it  their  pleasure  to  entertain  me  just  as  kindly  as 
my  immediate  hosts,  taking  me  to  concerts  or  the  opera, 
asking  me  to  dinner  or  supper,  including  me  on  every 
occasion  in  the  family  festivities,  which  were  numerous 
and  lively.  In  some  ways  my  hosts  found  me  a  dis- 
appointing guest,  and  said  so.  The  trouble  was  that  I 
liked  plain  rolls  and  butter  for  breakfast,  while  the 
daughters  for  days  before  I  came  had  baked  every  size 
and  variety  of  rich  cake  for  me  to  eat  first  thing  in  the 
morning  with  my  coffee.  I  never  could  eat  enough  to 
please  anyone  either.  You  never  can  in  Germany,  try 
as  you  may.  Yet  it  was  hungry  weather,  for  the  Rhine 
was  frozen  hard  all  the  time  I  was  there,  and  we  used 
to  skate  every  day  in  the  harbour  when  the  daughters 
of  the  house  had  finished  their  morning's  work.  Two 
maids  were  kept  on  the  flat,  but,  like  most  German 
servants,  they  were  supposed  to  require  constant  super- 
vision, and  when  a  room  was  turned  out  the  young 
ladies  in  their  morning  wrappers  helped  to  do  it.  They 
helped  with  the  ironing  too  and  the  cooking,  and 
did  all  the  mending  of  linen  and  clothes.  "  A  child's 
time  belongs  to  her  parents,"  said  the  father  one  day 
when  the  elder  daughter  wanted  to  skate,  but  was  told 
that  she  could  not  be  spared.  "  I've  had  a  heavenly 
time,"  said  a  girl  friend  who  had  been  laid  up  for  some 
weeks  with  a  sprained  ankle ;  "  I've  had  nothing  to  do 
but  read  and  amuse  myself."  The  household  work, 
however,  was  usually  done  before  the  one  o'clock  dinner, 
and  the  afternoon  was  given  up  to  skating,  walks,  and 
visits.  There  were  not  so  many  formal  calls  paid  as 
in  England,  but  there  was  a  constant  interchange  of 
hospitality  amongst  the  members  of  the  family,  the 
kind  of  intimate  unceremonious  entertaining  described 


200  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

in  Miss  Austen's  novels.  Every  time  one  of  the 
many  small  children  had  a  birthday  there  was  a 
feast  of  chocolate  and  cakes,  a  gathering  of  the  whole 
clan.  The  birthday  cake  had  a  sugared  Spruch  on 
it,  and  a  little  lighted  candle  for  each  year  of  the 
child's  age,  and  the  birthday  table  had  a  present  on  it 
from  everyone  who  came  to  the  party,  and  many  who 
did  not.  Once  a  week  the  married  daughters  and 
their  husbands  came  to  supper  with  my  hosts,  and 
every  day  when  they  were  not  coming  to  supper  they 
called  on  their  mother,  and  if  she  could  coax  them  to 
stay  drank  their  afternoon  coffee  with  her.  Sometimes 
one  or  two  strangers  were  asked  to  coffee,  for  this 
household  was  an  old-fashioned  one,  and  gave  you 
good  coffee  rather  than  wishy-washy  tea.  It  made  a 
point  of  honour  of  a  Meringuetorte  when  strangers 
came,  and  of  the  little  chocolate  cream  cakes  Germans 
call  Othellos.  But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  one 
or  two  strangers  constitute  a  Kaffee-Klatsch,  that 
celebrated  form  of  entertainment  where  at  every  sip 
a  reputation  dies.  A  genuine  Klatsch  was,  however, 
given  during  my  stay  by  a  young  married  woman 
who  wished  to  entertain  her  friends  and  display  her 
furniture.  About  twenty  ladies  were  invited,  and  when 
they  had  assembled  they  were  solemnly  conducted 
through  every  room  of  the  flat  from  the  drawing-room 
to  the  spick-and-span  kitchen,  where  every  pan  was  of 
shining  copper  and  every  cloth  embroidered  with  the 
bride's  monogram.  The  procession  as  it  filed  through 
the  rooms  chattered  like  magpies,  for  except  myself 
every  member  of  it  had  been  to  school  with  the  bride, 
and  had  helped  to  adorn  her  home  with  embroidered 
chair  backs,  cushions,  cloths,  newspaper  stands,  foot- 
stools, duster  bags,  and  suchlike,  all  of  which  they  now 
had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  in  the  places  suitable  to 


HOSPITALITY  20 1 

them.  By  the  time  we  sat  down  in  the  dining-room 
to  a  table  loaded  with  cakes,  the  slight  frost  of  arrival 
had  melted  away.  The  strange  Englishwoman  no 
longer  acted  as  a  wet  blanket,  and  when  she  tried  to 
converse  with  her  neighbours  she  found,  as  she  still 
finds  at  German  entertainments,  that  she  could  only  do 
so  by  screaming  at  the  top  of  her  voice  as  you  do  in 
England  in  a  high  wind  or  in  the  sound  of  loud 
machinery.  Everyone  was  in  the  highest  spirits,  and 
the  collective  noise  they  made  was  amazing.  In 
^Germany,  when  actors  play  English  parts  or  when 
people  in  private  life  put  on  English  manners,  the  first 
thing  they  do  is  to  lower  their  voices  as  if  they  had 
met  to  bury  a  friend.  This  is  the  way  our  natural 
manner  strikes  them,  while  their  natural  manner  strikes 
us  as  easy  and  jolly,  but  tiring  to  the  voice  and  after  a 
time  to  the  spirit.  There  are  quiet  Germans,  but  when 
they  sit  at  a  good  man's  table  they  must  certainly 
either  shout  or  be  left  out  of  all  that  goes  on.  At  a 
Kaffee-Klatsch  you  either  shout  or  whisper,  you  eat 
every  sort  of  rich  cake  presented  to  you  if  you  can,  you 
drink  chocolate  or  coffee  with  whipped  cream.  Nowa- 
days you  would  often  find  tea  provided  instead.  When 
the  hostess  finds  she  cannot  persuade  anyone  to  eat 
another  cake,  she  leads  her  guests  back  to  the  drawing- 
room,  and  the  Klatsch  goes  on.  There  is  often  music 
as  well  as  gossip,  and  before  you  are  allowed  to  depart 
there  are  more  refreshments,  ices,  sweetmeats,  fruit, 
little  glasses  of  lemonade  or  Bowie.  When  you  get 
home  you  do  not  want  any  supper,  and  you  are  quite 
hoarse,  though  you  have  only  been  to  a  simple  Kaffee- 
Klatsch  without  Schleppe.  Your  friends  tell  you  that 
when  they  were  young  a  Kaffee-Klatsch  mit  Schleppe 
was  the  favourite  form  of  entertaining,  and  lasted  the 
whole  afternoon  and  evening.  Men  were  asked  to 


202  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

come  in  when  the  Klatsch  was  over  and  a  supper  was 
provided.  Those  must  have  been  proud  and  bustling 
days  for  a  Hausfrau  with  one  "  girl." 

To  be  asked  to  dinner  or  supper  in  Germany  may 
mean  anything.  Either  form  of  invitation  varies  both 
in  hour  and  kind  more  than  it  does  in  England ;  but 
unless  you  are  asked  to  a  dinner  that  precedes  a  dance 
you  hardly  ever  need  evening  dress.  Some  years  ago 
you  would  have  written  that  people  never  dressed  for 
dinner  in  Germany  except  when  the  dinner  celebrated 
a  betrothal,  a  wedding,  or  some  equally  important  and 
unusual  event.  But  it  has  become  the  fashion  in 
Berlin  lately  to  dress  for  large  dinners  and  evening 
entertainments.  No  rule  can  be  laid  down  for  the 
guidance  of  English  visitors  to  Germany,  because  what 
you  wear  must  depend  partly  on  the  dinner  hour  and 
partly  on  the  ways  of  your  hosts  and  their  friends. 
Last  year  when  I  was  in  Berlin  I  accepted  a  formal 
invitation  sent  a  fortnight  beforehand  to  a  dinner 
given  on  a  Sunday  at  five  o'clock.  As  the  host  was 
a  distinguished  scientific  man  who  had  just  returned 
from  a  journey  round  the  world,  it  promised  to  be  an 
interesting  entertainment ;  and  there  were,  in  fact,  some 
of  the  most  celebrated  members  of  the  University 
present.  They  were  all  in  morning  dress,  and  their 
womenfolk  wore  what  we  should  call  Sunday  frocks. 
The  dinner  was  beautifully  cooked  and  served,  and 
was  not  oppressively  long.  Soup  began  it  of  course, 
roast  veal  with  various  vegetables  followed,  fish  came 
next,  lovely  little  grey-blue  fish  better  to  look  at  than 
to  eat,  then  chicken,  ice  pudding,  and  dessert.  There 
were  flowers  on  the  table,  but  not  as  many  as  we  should 
have  with  the  same  opportunities,  for  the  house  was 
set  in  an  immense  garden ;  and  all  down  the  long 
narrow  table  there  were  bottles  of  wine  and  mineral 


HOSPITALITY  203 

water.  When  the  champagne  came,  and  that  is  served 
at  a  later  stage  in  Germany  than  it  is  with  us,  speeches 
of  congratulation  were  made  to  the  host  on  his  safe 
return,  and  every  guest  in  reach  clinked  their  glasses 
with  his.  After  dinner  men  and  women  rose  together 
in  the  German  way,  and  drank  coffee  in  the  drawing- 
room.  The  men  lighted  cigars.  A  little  later  in  the 
evening  slender  glasses  of  beer  and  lemonade  were 
brought  round,  and  just  before  everyone  left  at  nine 
o'clock  there  was  tea  and  a  variety  of  little  cakes  and 
"sandwiches,  not  our  double  sandwiches,  but  tiny  single 
slices  of  buttered  roll,  each  with  its  scrap  of  caviare  or 
smoked  salmon. 

A  ball  supper  or  a  Christmas  supper  in  Germany 
consists  of  three  or  four  courses  served  separately,  and 
all  hot  except  the  sweet,  which  is  usually  Gefrorenes. 
Salmon,  roast  beef  or  veal,  venison  or  chicken,  and 
then  ice  would  be  an  ordinary  menu,  and  every  course 
would  be  divided  into  portions  and  handed  round  on 
long  narrow  dishes.  In  most  German  towns  you  are 
often  asked  to  supper,  and  very  seldom  to  dinner. 
You  never  know  beforehand  what  sort  of  meal  to 
expect  unless  you  have  been  to  the  house  before. 
In  some  houses  it  will  be  hot,  in  others  cold.  In 
Berlin,  supper  usually  offers  you  a  dish  made  with 
eggs  and  mushrooms,  eggs  and  asparagus,  or  some 
combination  of  the  kind,  and  after  this  the  usual 
variety  of  ham  and  sausages  fetched  from  the  provision 
shop.  Tea  and  beer  are  drunk  at  this  meal  in  most 
houses.  Sometimes  Rhine  wine  is  on  the  table  too. 
The  sweets  are  often  small  fruit  tartlets  served  with 
whipped  cream.  One  menu  I  remember  distinctly, 
because  it  was  so  quaint  and  full  of  surprises.  We 
began  with  huge  quantities  of  asparagus  and  poached 
eggs  eaten  together.  Then  we  had  Pumpernickel^ 


204  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

Gruyere  cheese  and  radishes,  and  for  a  third  course 
vanilla  ice.  That  was  the  end  of  the  supper,  but  later 
in  the  evening,  just  before  we  left,  in  came  an  enormous 
dish  covered  with  gooseberry  tartlets,  and  we  had  to 
eat  them,  for  somehow  in  Germany  it  seems  ungrateful 
and  unfriendly  not  to  eat  and  drink  what  is  provided. 

After  dinner  or  supper  everyone  wishes  everyone 
else  Mahlzeit,  which  is  to  say,  "  I  wish  you  a  good 
digestion."  Sometimes  people  only  bow  as  they  say 
it,  but  more  often  they  shake  hands.  I  know  an 
Englishman  who  was  much  puzzled  by  this  ceremony 
at  his  first  German  dinner-party.  He  saw  everyone 
shaking  hands  as  if  they  were  about  to  disperse  the 
instant  the  feast  was  over,  and  when  his  host  came 
to  him  with  a  smiling  face,  took  his  hand  and  mur- 
mured Mahlzeit)  he  summoned  what  German  he  had 
at  his  command  and  answered  Gute  Nacht. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
GERMAN  SUNDAYS 

THERE  was  to  be  singing  in  the  forest  on  Sunday 
afternoon,  we  were  told,  when  we  arrived  at  our 
little  Black  Forest  town ;  and  we  were  on  no  account 
to  miss  it.     We  did  not  want  to  miss  anything,  for 
whenever  we    looked  out  of  our  windows  or  strolled 
through  the  streets  we  were  entertained  and  enchanted. 
From  the  hotel  we  could  see  women  and  girls  pass  to 
and  fro  all  day  with  the  great  wooden  buckets  they 
carried  on  their  backs  and  filled  at  the  well  close  by. 
As    dusk   fell    the    oldest   woman   in    the  community 
hobbled  out,  let  down  the  iron  chains  slung  across  the 
street,  and  lighted  the  oil  lamps  swinging  from  them. 
All  the  gossips  of  the    place  gathered  at  the  well  of 
evenings,  and  throughout  the  day  barefooted  children 
played    there.     Behind    the     main    street    there    were 
gabled    houses    with    ancient    wooden    balconies     and 
gardens  crammed  with  pinks.     The  population  mostly 
sat  out  of  doors  after  dark,  and  as  it  was  hot  weather 
no  one  went  to  bed  early.     Even  in  the  dead  of  night 
the  timber  waggons  drawn  by  oxen  passed  through  the 
town,  and  the  driver  did  his  best  to  wake  us  by  crack- 
ing his  long  whip.      For  though  a  Black  Forest  town  is 
mediaeval  in  its  ways,  it  is  not  restful.      It  may  soothe 
you  by  suggestion,  the  people  seem   so  leisurely  and 

the  life  so  easy  going ;  but  there  is  not  an  hour  in  the 

205 


206  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

twenty-four  when  you    are    secure    from  noise.     The 

Sunday  in  question  began  with  the  bustle  occasioned 

in  a  country  inn  by  an  unusual  strain  on  its  resources. 

There  must  be  an  extra  good  dinner  for  the  expected 

influx  of   guests,  said  the  landlord's  niece,  who    kept 

house    for    him,  while  the  wife  and  daughters  ran    a 

second  hotel  higher  up  the  valley.     We  escaped  to  the 

forest,  where  the  morning  hours  of  a  hot  June  day  were 

fresh  and  scented,  and  we  were  sorry  we  had  to  return 

to  the  hotel  for  a  long  hot  midday  dinner.     When  it 

was  over,  we    sat   in   the  garden   and  wondered  why 

people  held  a  festival  on  the  top  of  a  hill  on  such  a 

sleepy  afternoon.      However,  when  the  time  came  we 

joined  the  leisurely  procession  making  the  ascent.      An 

hour's  stroll  took  us  to  the  concert  hall,  a  forest  glade 

where  people  sat  about  in  groups  waiting  for  the  music 

to  begin.      Barrels  of  beer  had  been  rolled  up  here,  and 

children   were    selling   Kringel^    crisp   twists   of  bread 

sprinkled  with  salt.     There  were  more  children  present 

than    adults,  and  we   observed,  as   you   nearly  always 

will  in    Germany,  that  though  they  belonged    to  the 

poorer   classes  they  wore  neat  clothes  and  had  quiet, 

modest    manners.     The  older  people  often    let    them 

drink  out  of  their  glasses,  for  it  was  a  thirsty  afternoon, 

and   when   the   singing    began   the  children  joined  in 

some  of  the  songs.     The  occasion  of  the  festival  was 

the  friendly  meeting  of  several  choirs,  and  they  sang 

fine  anthems  as  well  as    Volkslieder.     The  effect  of  the 

music  in  the  heart  of  the  forest  was  enchanting,  and  we 

stayed    till    the  end.     These    choral    competitions    or 

reunions  often  take  place  on  a  Sunday  in  Germany,  and 

in    summer  are  often  held  in  an  inn    garden.     They 

bring  some  custom  to  the  innkeeper,  but  drunkenness 

and    disorder  are  almost    unknown.      In    fact,  all    the 

cases  of  drunkenness  I  have  seen  in  Germany  have  been 


GERMAN  SUNDAYS  207 

in  the  Munich  comic  papers.  You  never  by  any 
chance  hear  of  it  as  you  do  in  England  amongst 
people  you  know,  and  you  may  spend  hours  at  the 
Berlin  Zoo  on  a  Whit-Monday  and  see  no  one  who  is 
not  sober.  University  students  get  drunk  and  have 
rights  with  innkeepers  and  policemen,  but  that  is 
etiquette  rather  than  vice.  Next  day  they  suffer  from 
Katzenjammer,  but  feel  that  they  are  upholding  ancient 
tradition.  Real  intemperance  is  found  almost  entirely 
amongst  the  dregs  of  the  big  cities  and  the  lowest 
class  of  peasants. 

In  Berlin  the  better  class  of  artisans  and  small 
tradespeople  escape  from  their  flats  on  Sundays  to  their 
allotment  gardens.  You  see  whole  tracts  of  these 
gardens  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city,  and  many  of  them 
have  some  kind  of  summer  house  or  rough  shelter. 
Here  the  family  spends  the  whole  day  in  fresher  air, 
and  presumably  finds  out  how  to  grow  the  simpler 
kinds  of  flowers  and  vegetables.  Those  who  have  no 
garden  and  can  afford  a  few  pence  for  fares  go  farther 
afield.  They  carry  food  for  the  day  in  tin  satchels,  or 
rolls  that  look  as  if  they  ought  to  accompany  butterfly 
nets  and  contain  entomological  specimens.  But  they 
are  usually  in  the  hands  of  a  stout  alpaca-clad 
middle-class  mater-familias,  who  looks  rather  anxious 
and  flustered  while  she  herds  her  flock  and  hunts  for  a 
garden  with  the  announcement, "  Hier  konnen  Familien 
Kaffee  kochen."  There  for  a  trifling  indemnity  she 
can  be  accommodated  with  seats,  cups  and  saucers, 
and  hot  water ;  just  as  people  can  in  an  English  tea- 
garden.  Provisions  she  has  with  her  in  her  Pickenick 
Rolle.  If  fate  takes  you  to  Potsdam  on  a  fine 
summer  Sunday,  you  will  think  that  the  whole 
bourgeoisie  of  Berlin  has  elected  to  come  by  the  same 
train  and  steamer,  and  that  everyone  but  you  has 


208  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

brought  food  for  the  day  in  a  green  tin.  You  need 
not  expect  to  find  a  seat  either  in  the  train  or  the 
steamer  at  certain  hours  of  the  day,  and  as  you  stand 
wedged  in  the  crowd  on  the  dangerously  overladen 
boat,  and  look  about  you  as  best  you  can  at  the  chain 
of  wooded  lakes,  you  wonder  how  it  is  that  such 
overcrowding  is  permitted  in  a  police-governed  land. 
At  home  we  take  such  things  for  granted  as  part  of 
our  system  or  want  of  system.  But  in  Germany  the 
moment  you  cross  the  frontier  a  thousand  trifles  make 
you  feel  that  you  are  a  unit  in  an  army,  drilled  and 
kept  under  by  the  bureaucracy  and  the  police.  It 
surprises  you  to  see  an  unmanageable  crowd  in  a  train 
or  on  a  steamer,  much  as  it  would  surprise  you  to  see 
soldiers  swarm  at  will  into  a  troopship.  You  expect 
them  to  march  precisely,  each  man  to  his  place.  And 
in  Germany  this  nearly  always  happens  in  civil  life ; 
while  even  on  a  Sunday  or  a  public  holiday  the  mob 
behaves  itself.  At  the  Berlin  Zoo,  for  instance,  there 
are  such  masses  of  people  every  Sunday  that  you  see 
nothing  but  people.  It  is  impossible,  or  rather  would 
not  be  agreeable,  to  force  your  way  through  the 
crowd  surrounding  the  cages.  But  the  people  are  inter- 
esting, and  it  is  to  see  them  that  you  have  ventured 
here.  You  soon  find,  however,  that  it  is  not  a  venture 
at  all.  No  one  will  offend  you,  no  one  is  drunken  or 
riotous.  The  gardens  are  packed  with  decent  folk, 
mostly  of  the  lower  middle  classes,  and  the  only 
unseemly  thing  you  see  them  do  is  to  eat  small  hot 
sausages  with  their  fingers  in  the  open-air  restaurants. 

Sunday  is  the  great  day  of  the  week  at  German 
theatres.  In  all  the  large  towns  there  are  afternoon 
performances  at  popular  prices,  and  this  means  that 
people  who  can  pay  a  few  pence  for  a  seat  can  see  all 
the  great  classical  plays  and  most  of  the  successful 


GERMAN  SUNDAYS  209 

modern  ones ;  and  they  can  hear  many  of  the  great 
operas  as  well  as  a  variety  of  charming  light  ones 
never  heard  in  this  country.  On  one  Sunday  afternoon 
in  Berlin,  Hoffmann's  Erzahlungen  was  played  at  one 
theatre,  and  at  others  Gorky's  Nachtasyl,  Tolstoy's 
Power  of  Darkness,  Hauptmann's  Versunkene  Glocke,  the 
well  known  military  play  Zapfenstreich,  and  Lortzing's 
light  opera  Der  Waffenschmied.  The  star  players 
and  singers  do  not  usually  appear  at  these  popular 
performances,  and  the  Wagnerian  Ring  has,  as  far  as  I 
know,  never  yet  been  given.  But  on  Sunday  afternoons 
all  through  the  winter  the  playhouses  are  crowded  with 
people  who  cannot  pay  week-day  prices,  and  yet  are 
intelligent  enough  to  enjoy  a  fairly  good  performance 
of  Hamlet  or  Egmont ;  who  are  musical  and  choose  a 
Mozart  opera ;  or  who  are  interested  in  the  problems 
of  life  presented  by  Ibsen,  Gorky,  Tolstoy,  or  their  own 
great  fellow-countryman  Gerhardt  Hauptmann.  When 
summer  comes,  as  long  as  the  theatres  are  open  the 
whole  audience  streams  out  between  the  acts  to  have 
coffee  or  beer  in  the  garden,  or  when  there  is  no 
garden,  in  the  nearest  restaurant;  and  then  comes 
your  chance  of  appraising  the  people  who  take  their 
pleasure  in  this  way.  They  look  for  the  most  part  as 
if  they  belonged  to  the  small  official  and  shop-keeper 
class.  If  the  play  is  a  suitable  one,  there  are  sure  to 
be  a  great  many  young  people  present,  and  at  the 
State-supported  theatres  these  Sunday  performances 
are  such  as  young  people  are  allowed  to  see. 

In  the  evening  the  Sunday  play  or  opera  is  always 
one  of  the  most  important  of  the  week;  the  play 
everyone  wishes  to  see  or  the  opera  that  is  most 
attractive.  A  Wagner  opera  is  often  played  on  a 
Sunday  evening  in  the  theatre  that  undertakes  Wagner. 
The  smaller  stages  will  give  some  old  favourite,  Der 
14 


210  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

Freischiltz,  Don  Juan,  Oberon,  or  Die  Zauberflote.  In 
fact,  all  through  the  winter  the  upper  and  middle  classes 
make  the  play  and  the  opera  their  favourite  Sunday 
pastime.  The  lower  classes  depend  a  good  deal  on 
the  public  dancing  saloons,  which  seem  to  do  as  much 
harm  as  our  public-houses,  and  to  be  disliked  and  dis- 
couraged by  all  sensible  Germans. 

So  far  this  account  of  a  German  Sunday  suggests 
that  Germans  always  go  from  home  for  their  weekly 
holiday,  and  it  is  true  that  when  Sunday  comes  the 
German  likes  to  amuse  himself.  But  he  is  not 
invariably  at  the  play  or  in  inn  gardens.  It  is  the 
day  when  scattered  members  of  a  family  will  meet 
most  easily,  and  when  the  branch  of  the  family  that 
can  best  do  so  will  entertain  the  others.  Some  years 
ago  in  a  North  German  city  I  was  often  with  friends 
who  had  a  dining-room  and  narrow  dinner  table  long 
enough  for  a  hotel.  The  host  and  hostess,  when  they 
were  by  themselves,  dined  in  a  smaller  room,  sitting 
next  to  each  other  on  the  sofa ;  but  on  Sundays  their 
children  and  grandchildren,  some  spinster  cousins,  some 
Stammgdste  (old  friends  who  came  every  week)  all  met 
in  the  drawing-room  at  five  o'clock,  and  sat  down  soon 
after  to  a  dinner  of  four  or  five  courses  in  a  long  dining- 
room.  It  was  a  company  of  all  ages  and  some  variety 
of  station,  and  the  patriarchal  arrangement  placed  the 
venerable  and  beloved  host  and  hostess  side  by  side  at 
the  top  of  the  room,  with  their  friends  in  order  of  im- 
portance to  right  and  left  of  them,  until  you  came, 
below  the  salt  as  it  were,  to  the  Mamsells  and  the  little 
children  at  the  foot  of  the  table.  But  the  Mamsells  did 
not  leave  the  room  when  the  sweets  arrived.  Everyone 
ate  everything,  including  the  preserved  fruits  that  came 
round  with  the  roast  meat,  and  the  pudding  that 
arrived  after  the  cheese.  In  those  days  it  was  not 


GERMAN  SUNDAYS  211 

considered  proper  in  Germany  for  ladies  to  eat  cheese, 
and  no  young  lady  would  dream  of  taking  one  of  the 
little  glasses  of  Madeira  offered  on  a  tray.  They  were 
exclusively  for  die  Herren,  and  always  gave  a  fillip  to 
the  conversation,  which  was  also  more  or  less  a  mascu- 
line monopoly.  Just  before  the  end  of  the  dinner  it 
was  the  business  of  the  Mamsell  belonging  to  the  house 
to  light  a  little  army  of  Vienna  coffee  machines  standing 
ready  on  the  sideboard,  so  that  coffee  could  be  served 
when  everyone  went  back  to  the  drawing-room.  The 
men  smoked  their  cigars  there  too,  and  someone  would 
play  the  piano,  and  when  no  music  was  going  on  there 
was  harmless,  rather  dull,  family  conversation.  The 
spinster  cousins  got  out  their  embroidery,  the  Mamsells 
disappeared  with  the  children,  die  Herren  either 
talked  to  each  other  or  had  a  quiet  game  of  Skat. 
The  women  and  some  of  the  men  had  been  to  church 
in  the  morning,  but  this  did  not  prevent  them  from 
spending  the  rest  of  the  day  as  it  pleased  them. 

It  will  be  seen  that  from  the  English  point  of  view 
Sunday  is  not  observed  at  all  in  Germany ;  yet  this 
does  not  mean,  as  is  often  announced  from  English 
pulpits,  that  the  whole  nation  is  without  religion.  Un- 
belief is  more  widely  professed  than  here,  and  many 
people  who  call  themselves  Christians  openly  reject 
certain  vital  doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith, — are 
Unitarians,  in  fact,  but  will  not  say  so.  But  the  whole 
question  of  religious  belief  in  Germany  is  a  difficult  and 
contentious  one,  for  according  to  the  people  you  meet 
you  will  be  told  that  the  nation  lacks  faith  or  possesses 
it.  If  you  use  your  own  judgment  you  must  conclude 
that  there  is  immensely  more  scepticism  there  than  here, 
and  that  there  is  also  a  good  deal  of  vague  belief,  a  belief, 
that  is,  in  a  personal  God  and  a  life  after  death.  But 
you  must  admit  that  except  in  an  "  evangelical "  set 


212  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

belief  sits  lightly  on  both  men  and  women.  Cer- 
tainly it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  way  they  spend 
Sunday,  and  if  they  go  to  church  in  the  morning  they 
are  as  likely  as  not  to  go  to  the  theatre  in  the  afternoon. 
They  sew,  they  dance,  they  fiddle,  they  act,  they  travel 
on  the  day  of  rest,  more  on  that  day  than  on  any  other, 
and  when  they  come  to  England  there  is  nothing  in 
our  national  life  they  find  so  tedious  and  unprofitable 
as  our  Sundays.  They  cannot  understand  why  a 
people  with  so  strong  a  tendency  to  drink  should  make 
the  public-house  the  only  counter  attraction  to  the 
church  on  the  working  man's  day  of  leisure ;  and  when 
they  are  in  a  country  place,  and  see  our  groups  of  idle, 
aimless  young  louts  standing  about  not  knowing  what 
to  do,  they  ask  why  in  the  name  of  common  sense 
they  should  not  play  an  outdoor  game.  The  Idealist 
expresses  the  German  point  of  view  very  well  in  her 
Memoirs,  and  in  so  far  as  she  misunderstands  our 
English  point  of  view  she  is  only  on  a  line  with  those 
amongst  us  who  denounce  the  continental  Sunday  as 
an  orgy  of  noisy  and  godless  pleasures.  She  says  :  "  I 
had  a  thousand  opportunities  of  noticing  that  the 
religious  life  did  not  mean  a  deep  life-sanctifying 
belief,  but  simply  one  of  those  formulas  that  are  a  part 
of  '  respectability,'  as  they  understand  it  both  in  the 
family  and  in  society.  Nothing  proves  this  better  than 
their  truly  shocking  way  of  keeping  holy  the  Sabbath 
day,  which  is  the  very  reverse  of  holy,  inasmuch  as  it 
paves  the  way  to  the  heaviest  boredom  and  slackness 
of  spirit.  I  have  been  in  English  houses  on  Sundays 
where  the  gentlemen  threw  themselves  from  one  easy 
chair  to  the  other,  and  proclaimed  their  empty  state 
of  mind  by  their  awful  yawns ;  where  the  children 
wandered  about  hopelessly  depressed,  because  they 
might  neither  play  nor  read  an  amusing  book,  not 


GERMAN  SUNDAYS  213 

even  Grimm's  Fairy  Tales ;  where  all  the  mental 
enjoyment  of  the  household  consisted  of  so-called 
'  sacred  music,'  which  some  young  miss  strummed 
on  the  piano  or,  worse  still,  sang.  A  young  girl  once 
spoke  to  me  in  severe  terms  about  the  Germans  who 
visit  theatres  and  concerts  on  Sundays.  I  asked  her 
whether,  if  she  put  it  to  her  conscience,  she  could 
honestly  say  that  she  had  holier  feelings  and  higher 
thoughts,  whether,  in  fact,  she  felt  herself  a  better 
human  being  on  her  quiet  Sunday,  than  when  she 
heard  a  Beethoven  Symphony,  saw  a  Shakespeare  play, 
or  any  other  noble  work  of  art.  She  confessed  with 
embarrassment  that  she  could  not  say  so,  but  never- 
theless arrived  at  the  logical  conclusion  that,  for  all 
that,  it  was  very  wicked  of  the  Germans  not  to  keep 
Sunday  more  holy.  Another  lady,  a  cultured  liberal- 
minded  person,  invited  me  once  to  go  with  her  to  the 
Temple  Church,  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  beautiful 
London  churches  in  the  city,  belonging  to  the  great 
labyrinth  of  Temple  Bar  where  English  justice  has  its 
seat.  The  music  of  the  Temple  Church  is  famous, 
and  I  had  expressed  a  wish  to  hear  it.  So  I  went  with 
my  house-mate  and  the  lady  in  question,  and  sat 
between  them.  During  the  sermon  I  had  great  trouble 
not  to  fall  asleep,  but  fought  against  it  for  the  sake  of 
decorum.  To  my  surprise,  when  I  glanced  at  my  right- 
hand  neighbour  I  saw  that  she  was  fast  asleep,  and 
when  I  glanced  at  the  one  on  my  left  I  saw  that  she 
was  asleep  too.  I  looked  about  at  other  people,  and 
saw  more  than  one  sunk  in  a  pious  Nirvana.  As  we 
left  the  church  I  asked  the  Englishwoman,  who  had 
a  strong  sense  of  humour,  whether  she  had  slept  well. 
'  Yes/  she  said,  laughing,  '  it  did  me  a  lot  of  good/ 
'  But  why  do  you  go  ? '  I  said.  '  Oh,  my  dear,'  said 
she,  '  what  can  one  do  ?  It  has  to  be  on  Sundays.' 


214  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

"  But  this  narrow  Sunday  observance  is  worse  for  the 
lower  than  for  the  upper  classes.  At  that  time  the 
great  dispute  was  just  beginning  as  to  whether  the 
people  should  be  admitted  to  the  Crystal  Palace,  to 
museums,  and  suchlike  institutions.  The  question  was 
discussed  in  Parliament,  and  decided  in  the  negative. 
It  was  feared  that  the  churches  would  remain  empty, 
and  that  morals  would  suffer  if  the  people  began  to 
like  heathen  gods,  works  of  art  and  natural  curiosities, 
better  than  going  to  church.  At  least,  this  is  the  only 
explanation  one  can  give  of  such  a  decision.  The 
churches  and  the  public-houses  remained  the  only 
public  places  open  on  Sundays.  The  churches  were 
all  very  well  for  a  few  hours  in  the  morning,  but 
what  about  the  afternoon  and  evening  ?  Then  the  beer- 
house was  the  only  refuge  for  the  artisan  or  proletarian 
bowed  down  by  the  weight  of  hard  work,  unused  and 
untaught  to  wile  away  the  idle  hours  of  Sunday  in  any 
intellectual  occupation,  and  having  no  friendly  attractive 
home  to  make  the  peace  of  his  own  hearth  the  best 
refreshment  after  the  exhausting  week.  And  so  it 
turned  out :  the  public-houses  were  full  to  overflowing, 
and  the  holiness  of  Sunday  was  only  too  often  dese- 
crated by  the  unholy  sight  of  drunken  men  and,  more 
horrible  still,  drunken  women ;  but  this  was  not  all,  for 
so  strong  was  the  temptation  thrust  upon  them,  that 
the  workman's  hardly  earned  week's  wages  went  in 
drink,  and  the  children  were  left  without  bread  and  not 
a  penny  was  saved  to  lighten  future  distress.  The 
coarse  animal  natures  of  the  only  half-human  beings 
became  coarser  and  more  animal  through  the  degrading 
passion  for  drink  that  only  too  often  has  murder  in 
its  train,  and  murder  in  its  most  terrible  and  brutal 
guise!" 

There  is  not  one  idea  or  argument  in  this  passage 


GERMAN  SUNDAYS  215 

that  I  have  not  heard  over  and  over  again  from  the 
lips  of  every  German  who  has  anything  to  say  about 
our  English  Sunday,  and  every  German  who  has  been 
in  England  or  heard  much  of  English  life  invariably 
attacks  what  he  considers  this  weak  joint  in  our 
armour. 

"  What  is  the  use  ?  "  he  asks,  "  of  going  to  church  in 
the  morning  if  you  get  drunk  and  beat  your  wife  at 
night  ?  " 

"  But  the  same  man  does  not  usually  do  both  things 
in  one  day,"  you  represent  to  him.  "  One  set  of  people 
goes  to  church  and  keeps  Sunday  strictly,  and  another 
set  goes  to  public-houses  and  is  drunk  and  disorderly. 
You  should  try  to  get  out  of  your  head  your  idea  that 
we  are  all  exactly  alike." 

"  But  you  are — exactly  alike.  Everyone  of  you 
goes  to  church  with  a  solemn  face,  sings  psalms,  and 
comes  back  to  his  roast  beef  and  apple-pie.  All  the 
afternoon  you  are  asleep ;  and  at  night  the  streets  and 
parks  are  not  fit  for  respectable  people." 

"  At  night,"  you  explain,  "  all  the  respectable  people 
are  at  home  eating  cold  beef  and  cold  pie.  The 
others  .  .  ." 

"  The  others  you  drive  to  drink  and  fight  and  kill 
by  your  pharisaical  methods.  You  shut  the  doors  of 
your  theatres  and  your  art  galleries,  and  you  set  wide 
the  doors  of  your  drinking  hells.  How  you  can  call 
yourself  a  religious  people — it  is  Satanic  .  .  ." 

"  But,  my  dear  man,"  you  say,  taking  a  long  breath, 
"  the  people  who  goto  public- houses  don't  want  theatres 
and  art  galleries.  They  are  on  too  low  a  level." 

"It  is  the  business  of  the  State  to  raise  them — not 
to  push  them  down.  Besides,  there  is  drinking — much 
drinking — in  England  on  the  higher  levels  too,  as  you 
well  know  .  ,  ." 


216  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

"  Of  course  I  know,"  you  say  impatiently.  "  All  I  am 
saying  is  that  we  do  not  bring  it  about  by  shutting  the 
British  Museum  on  Sundays." 

But  next  time  the  subject  comes  up  for  discussion 
your  German  will  say  again,  as  he  has  said  ever  since 
he  could  speak,  that  the  English  Sunday  is  anathema, 
and  a  standing  witness  to  British  Heuchelei,  because 
people  sing  psalms  in  the  morning  and  get  drunk  and 
beat  their  wives  at  night.  You  can  easily  imagine  the 
Hypocrite's  Progress  painted  by  a  German  Hogarth,  and 
it  would  begin  with  a  gentleman  in  a  black  coat  and 
tall  hat  on  his  way  to  church,  and  would  end  with  the 
same  gentleman  in  the  last  stage  of  delirium  tremens 
surrounded  by  his  slaughtered  family.  For  in  Germany 
one  of  the  curious  deep  rooted  notions  about  us,  who  as 
people  go  are  surely  indifferent  honest,  is  that  we  are 
ein  falsches  Volk.  With  the  want  of  logic  that  makes 
human  nature  everywhere  so  entertaining,  a  German 
will  nearly  always  cash  a  cheque  offered  by  an  English 
stranger  when  he  would  refuse  to  do  so  for  a  country- 
man. As  far  as  one  can  get  at  it,  what  Germans  really 
mean  by  our  Heuchelei  when  they  speak  without  malice 
is  our  regard  for  the  unwritten  social  law.  This  is  so 
strong  in  us  from  old  habit  and  tradition  that  most  of 
us  do  not  feel  the  shackles  ;  but  the  stranger  within 
our  gates  feels  it  at  every  step. 


CHAPTER  XX 

SPORT  AND  GAMES 

THE  word  Sport  has  been  taken  into  the  German 
language  lately,  but  Germans  use  it  when  we 
should  use  "  hobby."  "  It  is  my  sport,"  says  an  artist 
when  he  shows  you  furniture  of  his  own  design.  He 
means  that  his  business  in  life  is  to  paint  pictures,  but 
his  pleasure  is  to  invent  beautiful  chairs  and  tables. 
When  the  talk  turns  on  the  absurd  extreme  to  which 
the  Marthas  of  Germany  carry  their  housekeeping 
zeal,  a  German  friend  will  turn  to  you  in  defence  of 
his  countrywomen.  "  It  is  their  c  sport/  "  says  he,  and 
you  understand  his  point  of  view.  Yet  another  will 
tell  you  that  the  English  have  only  become  sportsmen 
in  modern  times,  and  that  the  Germans  are  rapidly 
catching  them  up ;  but  this  is  the  kind  of  information 
you  receive  politely,  disagree  with  profoundly,  and  do 
not  discuss  because  you  have  not  all  the  facts  at  your 
fingers'  ends.  But  you  know  that  the  British  love 
of  sport,  be  it  vice  or  virtue,  is  as  ingrained  in  Britons 
as  their  common  sense,  and  as  old  as  their  history. 

In  Germany  the  country  gentleman  is  a  sportsman. 
He  rides,  he  shoots,  he  hunts  the  wild  boar  which  he 
preserves  in  his  great  forests.  "  You  have  no  country 
(Land)"  said  a  German  to  me,  using  the  word  as 
opposed  to  town.  In  Germany  we  have  country  still." 

He  meant  that  England  is  thickly  populated,  and  that 

317 


218  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

we  have  no  vast  tracts  of  heath  and  forest  where  wild 
animals  live  undisturbed.  I  told  him  there  were  a 
few  such  places  still  in  Scotland,  but  that  they  all 
belonged  to  American  and  Jewish  millionaires ;  how- 
ever, he  would  not  believe  it.  He  said  he  had  spent 
a  fortnight  in  England  and  had  not  heard  of  them. 

It  is  not  such  a  matter  of  course  with  Germans  of 
a  certain  class  to  ride  as  it  is  with  us.  You  see  a 
few  men,  women,  and  children  on  horseback  in  Berlin, 
but  not  many ;  and  in  most  German  towns  you  see 
no  one  riding  except  cavalry  officers.  I  am  told  that 
the  present  Emperor  tried  to  institute  a  fashionable 
hour  for  riding  in  the  Tiergarten,  but  that  it  fell  through 
partly  because  there  were  not  enough  people  to  bring 
decent  carriages  and  horses.  On  the  great  estates  in 
East  Prussia  the  women  as  well  as  the  men  of  the 
family  ride,  and  go  great  distances  in  this  way  to 
see  their  friends ;  but  in  cities  you  cannot  fail  to 
observe  the  miserable  quality  and  condition  of  the 
horses  and  the  scarcity  of  private  carriages.  In 
fact,  the  German  does  not  make  as  much  of  animals 
as  the  Englishman  does.  If  he  lives  in  the  country, 
or  if  he  means  to  be  a  man  of  fashion,  he  will  have 
dogs  and  horses,  but  he  will  not  have  one  or  both,  by 
hook  or  by  crook,  whether  he  is  rich  or  poor,  as  the 
Briton  does.  You  see  dogs  in  any  German  city  that 
remind  you  of  a  paragraph  that  once  appeared  in  an 
Italian  paper,  a  paragraph  about  a  case  of  dog  stealing. 
The  dog  was  produced  in  court,  said  the  paper,  and 
was  either  a  fox  terrier  or  a  Newfoundland.  But  you 
often  see  a  fine  Dachs ;  in  Heidelberg  the  students  are 
proud  of  their  great  boar-hounds,  and  in  the  Black 
Forest  there  are  numbers  of  little  black  Pomeranians. 

In  German  towns  where  there  is  water,  the  traffic 
on  it  both  for  business  and  amusement  is  as  busy 


SPORT  AND  GAMES  219 

as  with  us,  and  in  some  respects  better  managed. 
Hamburg  life,  for  instance,  is  largely  on  the  basin  of 
the  Alster ;  either  in  the  little  steamers  that  carry  you 
from  city  to  suburb,  or  in  the  small  craft  that  crowd 
its  waters  on  a  summer  night.  It  is  as  usual  in 
Hamburg  as  on  the  Thames  to  own  boats  and 
understand  their  management,  and  there  are  the  same 
varieties  to  be  seen  there :  the  pleasure  boats  with 
people  of  all  ages,  the  racing  outrigger  full  of  strenu- 
ous, lightly  clad  young  men,  and  the  little  sail  boats 
scurrying  across  the  water  before  the  breeze.  On  the 
Rhine  the  big  steamers  do  a  roaring  traffic  all  the 
summer,  and  catch  the  public  that  likes  a  good  dinner 
with  their  scenery;  and  on  the  Rhine,  as  well  as 
on  most  of  the  other  rivers  of  Germany,  there  are  a 
great  many  swimming  baths ;  for  every  German  who 
has  a  chance  learns  to  swim.  In  Hamburg  on  a 
summer  evening  you  meet  troops  of  little  boys  and 
girls  going  to  the  baths,  many  of  them  belonging  to 
the  poorer  classes ;  for  where  there  are  no  swimming 
baths  attached  to  the  school  they  get  tickets  free  or 
at  a  very  low  rate.  About  fishing  I  can"  only  speak 
from  hearsay,  for  I  have  never  caught  a  minnow  myself, 
but  I  have  met  Germans  who  are  keen  anglers,  and 
I  have  found  that  they  knew  every  London  shop 
beloved  of  anglers,  and  the  English  name  of  every 
fly. 

Germans  get  more  amusement  out  of  their  water- 
ways in  winter  than  we  do,  for  the  winters  there  are 
long  and  hard,  so  that  there  is  always  skating.  I  have 
seen  the  Alster  frozen  for  weeks,  and  the  whole  city 
of  Hamburg  playing  on  the  ice.  It  was  not  what 
we  call  good  ice,  and  not  what  we  call  good  skating. 
For  the  most  part  people  were  content  to  get  over 
the  ground,  to  mix  with  their  friends,  to  have  hot 


220  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

drinks  at  the  booths  that  sprang  up  in  long  lines  by 
the  chief  track,  and  even  to  stroll  about  without  skates 
and  watch  the  fun.  All  classes,  all  ages,  and  both 
sexes  skate  nowadays,  but  some  fifty  or  sixty  years 
ago  German  ladies  were  not  seen  on  the  ice  at  all. 
Skating,  like  most  exercises  that  are  healthy  and 
agreeable,  was  considered  unfeminine,  and  men  had 
the  fun  to  themselves.  In  the  mountain  districts  of 
Germany  winter  sports  are  growing  in  favour  every 
year,  and  people  go  to  the  Riesengebirge  or  to  the 
Black  Forest  for  tobogganing  and  ski -ing.  The 
German  illustrated  papers  constantly  have  articles 
about  these  winter  pastimes,  and  portraits  of  the 
distinguished  men  and  women  who  took  part  in 
them.  The  history  of  cycling  in  Germany  is  not 
unlike  its  history  here.  The  boom  subsided  some 
years  ago,  but  a  steady  industry  survives.  In  Berlin 
you  see  officers  in  uniform  on  bicycles,  but  you  see 
hardly  any  ladies.  That  is  because  the  Emperor  and 
Empress  disapprove  of  cycling  for  women,  and  their 
disapproval  has  made  it  unfashionable.  Ten  years 
ago,  two  years,  that  is,  after  the  English  boom,  no 
woman  on  a  bicycle  had  ever  been  seen  in  the  remoter 
valleys  of  the  Black  Forest.  One  who  ventured  there 
used  to  be  followed  by  swarms  of  wondering  children, 
who  wished  her  All  Heil  at  the  top  of  their  voices. 
They  did  not  heave  bricks  at  her. 

Tennis  has  not  been  blighted  by  the  imperial  frown, 
and  is  extremely  popular  in  Germany.  Hockey,  as 
far  as  I  know,  is  not  played  yet;  certainly  not  by 
women.  Cricket  and  football  are  played,  but  not 
very  much.  An  Englishman  teaching  at  a  gymnasium, 
told  me  that  the  authorities  discouraged  outdoor  games, 
as  they  were  considered  waste  of  time.  Gymnastics 
is  the  form  of  athletics  really  enjoyed  and  practised 


SPORT  AND  GAMES  221 

by  Germans.  Every  boy,  even  every  girl,  begins  them 
at  school,  and  the  boy  when  he  leaves  school  joins 
a  Turnverein.  For  wherever  Germans  foregather, 
and  whatever  they  do,  you  may  be  sure  they  have 
a  Verein^  and  that  the  Verein  has  feasts  in  winter 
and  Ausfliige  in  summer.  When  a  man  is  young 
and  lusty,  the  delights  of  the  Verein^  the  Ausflug^ 
the  feast,  and  the  walking  tour  are  often  combined. 
You  meet  a  whole  gang  of  pleasure  pilgrims  ascending 
the  broad  path  that  leads  to  the  restaurant  on  the 
top  of  a  German  mountain,  or  you  encounter  them 
in  the  restaurant  itself  making  speeches  to  the  honour 
and  glory  of  their  Verein ;  and  you  find  that  they 
are  the  gymnasts  or  the  fire  brigade,  or  the  archi- 
tects or  what  not  of  an  adjacent  town,  and  that  once 
a  year  they  make  an  excursion  together,  beginning 
with  a  walk  or  a  journey  by  rail  or  by  steamer,  and 
culminating  in  a  restaurant  where  they  dine  and  drink 
and  speechify.  Every  age,  every  trade,  and  every 
pastime  has  its  Verein  and  its  anniversary  rites.  I 
was  much  amused  and  puzzled  in  Berlin  one  afternoon 
by  a  procession  that  filed  slowly  past  the  tram  in  which 
I  sat,  and  was  preceded  and  attended  by  such  a  rabble 
of  sightseers  that  the  ordinary  traffic  was  stopped  for 
a  time.  I  thought  at  first  it  was  a  demonstration  in 
connection  with  temperance  or  teetotalism,  because 
there  were  so  many  broad  blue  ribbons  about,  and 
I  was  surprised,  because  I  know  that  Germans  club 
together  to  drink  beer  and  not  to  abstain  from  it, 
and  that  they  are  a  sober  nation.  At  the  head  of 
the  procession  came  a  string  of  boys  on  bicycles,  each 
boy  carrying  a  banner.  Then  came  four  open  carriages 
garlanded  with  flowers.  There  was  a  garland  round 
each  wheel,  as  well  as  round  the  horses'  necks  and 
the  coachmen's  hats,  and  anywhere  else  where  a 


222  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

garland  would  rest.  In  each  carriage  sat  four  damsels 
robed  in  white,  and  they  wore  garlands  instead  of  hats. 
After  them  walked  a  large,  stout,  red-faced  man  in 
evening  dress,  and  he  carried  a  staff.  After  him 
walked  the  music,  men  puffing  and  blowing  into  brass 
instruments,  and,  like  their  leader,  wearing  evening 
dress  and  silk  hats.  They  were  followed  by  a  pro- 
cession that  seemed  as  if  it  would  stretch  to  the  moon, 
a  procession  of  elderly,  portly  men  all  wearing  evening 
dress,  all  wearing  broad  blue  ribbons  and  embroidered 
scarves,  and  all  marching  with  banners  bearing  various 
devices.  The  favourite  device  was  Heil  Gambrinus, 
and  when  I  saw  that  I  knew  that  the  blue  ribbons 
had  nothing  to  do  with  total  abstention.  The  next 
banner  explained  things.  It  was  the  Verein  of  the 
Schenkwirte  of  Berlin, — the  publicans,  in  fact,  of  Berlin 
having  their  little  holiday. 

All  through  the  summer  the  German  nation  amuses 
itself  out  of  doors,  and  leads  an  outdoor  life  to  an 
extent  unknown  and  impossible  in  our  damp  climate. 
A  house  that  has  a  garden  nearly  always  has  a  garden 
room  where  all  meals  are  served.  Sometimes  it  is  a 
detached  summer  house,  but  more  often  it  opens  from 
the  house  and  is  really  a  big  verandah  with  a  roof  and 
sides  of  glass.  In  country  places  the  inn  gardens  are 
used  as  dining-rooms  from  morning  till  night,  and  you 
may  if  you  choose  have  everything  you  eat  and  drink 
brought  to  you  out  of  doors.  Most  inns  have  a  skittle 
alley,  for  skittles  are  still  played  in  Germany  by  all 
classes.  The  peasants  play  it  on  Sunday  afternoons, 
and  the  dignified  merchant  has  his  skittle  club  and 
spends  an  evening  there  once  a  week.  The  favourite 
card  game  of  Germany  is  still  Skat,  but  bridge  has  been 
heard  of  and  will  probably  supersede  it  in  time.  Skat 
is  a  good  game  for  three  players,  with  a  system  of 


SPORT  AND  GAMES  223 

scoring  that  seems  intricate  till  you  have  played  two 
or  three  times  and  got  used  to  it.  In  Germany  it  is 
always  die  Herren  who  play  these  serious  games,  while 
the  women  sit  together  with  their  bits  of  embroidery. 
At  the  Ladies'  Clubs  in  Berlin  there  is  some  card 
playing,  but  these  two  or  three  highly  modern  and 
emancipated  establishments  do  not  call  the  tune  for  all 
Germany.  Directly  you  get  away  from  Berlin  you  find 
that  men  and  women  herd  separately,  far  more  than  in 
England,  take  their  pleasures  separately,  and  have  fewer 
interests  in  common.  It  is  still  the  custom  for  the 
man  of  the  family  to  go  to  a  beer-house  every  day, 
much  as  an  Englishman  goes  to  his  club.  Here  he 
meets  his  friends,  sees  the  papers,  talks,  smokes,  and 
drinks  his  Schoppen.  Each  social  grade  will  have  its 
own  haunts  in  this  way,  or  its  own  reserved  table  in  a 
big  public  room.  At  the  Hof  Brauhaus  in  Munich 
one  room  is  set  apart  for  the  Ministers  of  State,  and 
I  was  told  some  years  ago  that  the  appointments  of  it 
were  just  as  plain  and  rough  as  those  in  the  immense 
public  hall  where  anyone  who  looked  respectable  could 
have  the  best  beer  in  the  world  and  a  supper  of 
sorts. 

It  is  dull  uphill  work  to  write  about  sport  and  out- 
door games  in  Germany,  because  you  may  have  been 
in  many  places  and  met  a  fair  variety  of  people  with- 
out seeing  any  enthusiasm  for  either  one  or  the  other. 
The  bulk  of  the  nation  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  not 
interested  in  sport  or  in  any  outdoor  games  except 
indifferent  tennis,  swimming,  skating,  and  in  some 
places  boating.  When  a  German  wants  to  amuse  him- 
self, he  sits  in  a  garden  and  listens  to  a  good  band ;  if 
he  is  young  and  energetic,  he  walks  on  a  well-made 
road  to  a  restaurant  on  the  top  of  a  hill.  In  winter  he 
plays  skat,  goes  to  the  theatre  or  to  a  concert,  or  has 


224  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

his  music  at  home.  Also  he  reads  a  great  deal,  and 
he  reads  in  several  tongues.  This,  at  any  rate,  is  the 
way  of  Germans  in  cities  and  summer  places,  and  it  is 
a  very  small  proportion  of  the  educated  classes  who 
lead  what  we  call  a  country  life.  "  Elizabeth  "  knows 
German  country  life,  and  describes  it  in  her  charming 
books  ;  perhaps  she  will  some  day  choose  to  tell  us  how 
the  men  in  her  part  of  the  world  amuse  themselves, 
and  whether  they  are  good  sportsmen.  I  must  confess 
that  I  have  only  once  seen  a  German  in  full  sporting 
costume.  It  was  most  impressive,  though,  a  sort  of 
pinkish  grey  bound  everywhere  with  green,  and  set  off 
by  a  soft  felt  hat  and  feathers.  As  we  were  having 
a  walk  with  him,  and  it  was  early  summer,  we  ven- 
tured to  ask  him  what  he  had  come  to  kill.  "  Bees," 
said  he,  and  killed  one  the  next  moment  with  a  pop- 
gun. 


CHAPTER   XXI 

INNS  AND  RESTAURANTS 

NGLISH  people  who  have  travelled  in  Germany 
1  >  know  some  of  the  big  well-kept  hotels  in  the 
large  towns,  and  know  that  they  are  much  like  big 
hotels  in  other  continental  cities.  It  is  not  in  these 
establishments  that  you  can  watch  national  life  or 
discover  much  about  the  Germans,  except  that  they  are 
good  hotel-keepers ;  and  this  you  probably  discovered 
long  ago  abroad  or  at  home.  If  you  are  a  woman,  you 
may  be  impressed  by  the  fineness,  the  whiteness,  the 
profusion,  and  the  embroidered  monograms  of  the  linen, 
whether  you  are  in  a  huge  caravanserai  or  a  wayside 
inn.  Otherwise  a  hotel  at  Cologne  or  Heidelberg  has 
little  to  distinguish  it  from  a  hotel  at  Brussels  or  Bale. 
The  dull  correct  suites  of  furniture,  the  two  narrow 
bedsteads,  even  the  table  with  two  tablecloths  on  it, 
a  thick  and  a  thin,  the  parqueted  floor,  and  the  small 
carpet  are  here,  there,  and  everywhere  directly  you  cross 
the  Channel. 

The  modern  German  tells  you  with  pride  that  this 
apparent  want  of  national  quality  and  colour  is  to  be 
felt  in  every  corner  of  life,  and  that  what  you  take  to 
be  German  is  not  peculiarly  German  at  all,  but  common 
to  the  whole  continent  of  Europe.  This  may  be  true 
in  certain  cases  and  in  a  certain  sense,  but  there  is 
another  sense  in  which  it  is  never  true.  For  instance, 


226  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

the  women  of  continental  nations  wear  high  -  necked 
gowns  in  the  evening.  It  is  only  English  women  who 
wear  evening  gowns  as  a  matter  of  course  every  day 
of  their  lives.  I  have  been  told  in  Germany  that,  so 
far  from  being  a  sign  of  civilisation,  this  fashion  is 
merely  a  stupid  survival  from  the  times  when  all  the 
women  of  Europe  went  barenecked  all  day.  However 
this  may  be,  there  is  no  doubt  that  whether  the  gown 
be  high  or  low,  worn  by  sunlight  or  lamplight,  you  can 
see  at  a  glance  whether  the  woman  who  wears  it  is 
English,  French,  or  German.  Every  nation  has  its 
own  features,  its  own  manners,  and  its  own  tone, 
instantly  recognised  by  foreigners,  and  apparently 
hidden  from  itself.  The  German  assures  you  that  the 
English  manner  is  quite  unmistakable,  and  he  will 
even  describe  and  imitate  for  your  amusement  some  of 
his  silly  countryfolk  who  were  talking  to  him  quite 
naturally,  but  suddenly  froze  and  stiffened  at  the 
approach  of  English  friends  whose  national  manner 
they  wished  to  assume.  In  England  we  are  not 
conscious  of  having  a  stiff  frozen  manner,  and  we  never 
dream  that  everyone  has  the  same  manner.  It  takes  a 
foreigner  to  perceive  this ;  and  so  in  Germany  it  takes 
a  foreigner  to  appreciate  and  even  to  see  the  character- 
istic trifles  that  give  a  nation  a  complexion  of  its  own. 
Some  of  the  most  comfortable  hotels  in  Germany 
are  the  smaller  ones  supported  entirely  by  Germans. 
A  stray  Englishman,  finding  one  of  these  starred  in 
Baedeker  and  put  in  the  second  class,  may  try  it  from 
motives  of  economy,  but  in  many  of  them  he  would 
only  meet  merchants  on  their  travels  and  the  unmarried 
men  of  the  neighbourhood  who  dine  there.  In  such 
establishments  as  these  the  table  ffhdte  still  more  or 
less  prevails,  while  if  you  go  to  fashionable  hotels  you 
dine  at  small  tables  nowadays  and  see  nothing  of  your 


INNS  AND  RESTAURANTS  227 

neighbours.  The  part  played  during  dinner  by  the 
hotel  proprietor  varies  considerably.  In  a  big  establish- 
ment he  is  represented  by  the  Oberkellner^  and  does 
not  appear  at  all.  The  Oberkellner  is  a  person  of 
weight  and  standing ;  so  much  so  that  when  you  are 
in  a  crowded  beer  garden  and  can  get  no  one  to  attend 
to  you,  you  call  out  Ober  to  the  first  boy  waiter  who 
passes,  and  he  is  so  touched  by  the  compliment  that 
he  serves  you  before  your  turn.  But  in  a  real  old- 
fashioned  German  inn  you  have  personal  relations  with 
-the  proprietor,  for  he  takes  the  head  of  his  table  and 
attends  to  the  comfort  of  his  customers  as  carefully  as 
if  they  were  his  guests.  This  used  to  be  a  universal 
custom,  but  you  only  find  it  observed  now  in  the 
Sleepy  Hollows  of  Germany.  I  have  stayed  in  a  most 
comfortable  and  well-managed  hotel  where  the  pro- 
prietor and  his  brother  waited  on  their  guests  all 
through  dinner,  but  never  sat  down  with  them.  There 
were  hired  men,  but  they  played  a  subordinate  part. 
In  small  country  inns  the  host  still  arrives  in  the 
garden  when  your  meal  is  served,  asks  if  you  have  all 
you  want,  wishes  you  guten  Appetit,  and  after  a  little 
further  conversation  waddles  away  to  perform  the  same 
office  at  some  other  table.  Except  in  the  depths  of 
the  country  where  the  inn  -  keepers  are  peasants, 
a  German  hotel-keeper  invariably  speaks  several 
languages,  and  has  usually  been  in  Paris  and  London 
or  New  York.  His  business  is  to  deal  with  the  guests 
and  the  waiters,  and  to  look  after  the  cellar  and  the 
cigars ;  while  his  wife  or  his  sister,  though  she  keeps 
more  in  the  background  than  a  French  proprietress, 
does  just  as  much  work  as  a  Frenchwoman,  and,  as  far 
as  one  can  judge,  more  than  any  man  in  the  establish- 
ment. She  superintends  the  chambermaids  and  has 
entire  care  of  the  vast  stock  of  linen ;  in  many  cases 


228  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

she  has  most  of  it  washed  on  the  premises,  and  she 
helps  to  iron  and  repair  it.  She  buys  the  provisions, 
and  sees  that  there  is  neither  waste  nor  disorder  in  the 
kitchen ;  she  often  does  a  great  part  of  the  actual 
cooking  herself.  When  I  was  a  girl  I  happened  to 
spend  a  winter  in  a  South  German  hotel  of  old  stand- 
ing, kept  for  several  generations  in  the  same  family, 
and  now  managed  by  two  brothers  and  a  sister.  The 
sister,  a  well-educated  young  woman  of  twenty-five, 
used  to  get  up  at  five  winter  and  summer  to  buy  what 
was  wanted  for  the  market,  and  one  day  she  took  me 
with  her.  It  was  a  pretty  lesson  in  the  art  of  house- 
keeping as  it  is  understood  and  practised  in  Germany. 
All  the  peasant  women  in  the  duchy  could  not  have 
persuaded  my  young  woman  to  have  given  the  fraction 
of  a  farthing  more  for  her  vegetables  than  they  were 
worth  that  day,  or  to  take  any  geese  except  the 
youngest  and  plumpest.  She  went  briskly  from  one 
part  of  the  market  to  the  other,  seeming  to  see  at  a 
glance  where  it  was  profitable  to  deal  this  morning. 
She  did  not  haggle  or  squabble  as  inferior  housewives 
will,  because  she  knew  just  what  she  wanted  and  what 
it  was  prudent  to  pay  for  it.  When  she  got  home  she 
sat  down  to  a  second  breakfast  that  seemed  to  me  like 
a  dinner,  a  stew  of  venison  and  half  a  bottle  of  light 
wine;  but,  as  she  said,  hotel  keeping  is  exhausting 
work,  and  hotel-keepers  must  needs  live  well. 

At  some  hotels  in  this  part  of  Germany  wine  is 
included  in  the  charge  for  dinner,  and  given  to  each 
guest  in  a  glass  carafe  or  uncorked  bottle.  It  is  kept 
on  tap  even  in  the  small  wayside  inns,  where  you  get 
half  a  litre  for  two  or  three  pence  when  you  are  out 
for  a  walk  and  are  thirsty.  If  you  dislike  thin  sour 
wine  you  had  better  avoid  the  grape  -  growing  lands 
and  travel  in  Bavaria,  where  every  country  inn-keeper 


INNS  AND  RESTAURANTS  229 

brews  his  own  beer.  Many  of  these  small  inns  enter- 
tain summer  visitors,  not  English  and  Americans  who 
want  luxuries,  but  their  own  countryfolk,  whose  purses 
and  requirements  are  both  small.  As  far  as  I  know 
by  personal  experience  and  by  hearsay,  the  rooms  in 
these  inns  are  always  clean.  The  bedding  all  over 
Germany  is  most  scrupulously  kept  and  aired.  In 
country  places  you  see  the  mattresses  and  feather  beds 
hanging  out  of  the  windows  near  the  pots  of  carnations 
every  sunny  day.  The  floors  are  painted,  and  are  washed 
all  over  every  morning.  The  curtains  are  spotless. 
In  each  room  there  is  the  inevitable  sofa  with  the  table 
in  front  of  it,  a  most  sensible  and  comfortable  addition 
to  a  bedroom,  enabling  you  to  seek  peace  and  privacy 
when  you  will.  If  you  wander  far  enough  from  the 
beaten  track,  you  may  still  find  that  all  the  water  you 
are  supposed  to  want  is  contained  in  a  good-sized 
glass  bottle;  but  if  you  are  English  your  curious 
habits  will  be  known,  and  more  water  will  be  brought 
to  you  in  a  can  or  pail.  My  husband  and  I  once 
spent  a  summer  in  a  Thuringian  inn  that  had  never 
taken  staying  guests  before,  and  even  here  we  found 
that  the  proprietress  had  heard  of  English  ways,  and 
was  willing,  with  a  smile  of  benevolent  amusement,  to 
fill  a  travelling  bath  every  day.  This  inn  had  a  summer 
house  where  all  our  meals  were  served  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  where  people  from  a  fashionable  watering- 
place  in  the  next  valley  came  for  coffee  or  beer  some- 
times. The  household  itself  consisted  of  the  proprietress, 
her  daughter,  and  her  maidservant,  and  during  the 
four  months  we  spent  there  I  never  knew  them  to 
sit  down  to  a  regular  meal.  They  ate  anything  at 
any  time,  as  they  fancied  it.  The  summer  house  in 
which  we  had  our  meals  was  large  and  pleasant,  with 
a  wide  view  of  the  hills  and  a  near  one  of  an  old  stone 


230  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

bridge  and  a  trout  stream.  The  trees  near  the  inn 
were  limes,  and  their  scent  while  they  were  in  flower 
overpowered  the  scent  of  pines  coming  at  other  times 
with  strength  and  fragrance  from  the  surrounding  forest. 
The  only  drawback  to  our  comfort  was  a  hornets'  nest 
in  an  old  apple-tree  close  to  the  summer-house.  The 
hornets  used  to  buzz  round  us  at  every  meal,  and  at 
first  we  supposed  they  might  sting  us.  This  they 
never  did,  though  we  waged  war  on  them  fiercely. 
But  no  one  wants  to  be  chasing  and  killing  hornets 
all  through  breakfast  and  dinner,  so  we  asked  the 
maid  of  the  inn  what  could  be  done  to  get  rid  of  them. 
She  smiled  and  said  Jawohl,  which  was  what  she  always 
said ;  and  we  went  out  for  a  walk.  When  we  came 
back  and  sat  down  to  supper  there  were  no  hornets. 
Jawohl  had  just  stood  on  a  chair,  she  said,  poured  a 
can  of  water  into  the  nest,  and  stuffed  up  the  opening 
with  grass.  She  had  not  been  stung,  and  we  were  not 
pestered  by  a  hornet  again  that  summer.  I  have 
sometimes  told  this  story  to  English  people,  and  seen 
that  though  they  were  too  polite  to  say  so  they  did 
not  believe  it.  But  that  is  their  fault.  The  story  as 
I  have  told  it  is  true.  We  found  immense  numbers 
of  hornets  in  one  wild  uninhabited  valley  where  we 
sometimes  walked  that  summer,  but  we  were  never 
stung. 

The  proprietress  of  this  inn,  like  most  German 
women,  was  a  fair  cook.  Besides  the  inn  she  owned 
a  small  brewery,  and  employed  a  brewer  who  lived 
quite  near,  and  showed  us  the  whole  process  by  which 
he  transferred  the  water  of  the  trout  stream  into 
foaming  beer.  His  mistress  had  no  rival  in  the 
village,  and  the  village  was  a  small  one,  so  sometimes 
the  beer  was  a  little  flat.  When  Jawohl  brought  a  jug 
from  a  cask  just  broached,  she  put  it  on  the  table  with 


INNS  AND  RESTAURANTS  231 

a  proud  air,  and  informed  us  that  it  was  frisch 
angesteckt.  We  once  spent  a  summer  in  a  Bavarian 
village  where  a  dozen  inns  brewed  their  own  beer, 
and  it  was  always  known  which  one  had  just  tapped 
a  cask.  Then  everyone  crowded  there  as  a  matter  of 
course.  In  all  these  country  inns  there  is  one  room 
with  rough  wooden  tables  and  benches,  and  here  the 
peasants  sit  smoking  their  long  pipes  and  emptying 
their  big  mugs  or  glasses,  and  as  a  rule  hardly 
speaking.  They  do  not  get  drunk,  but  no  doubt  they 
spend  more  than  they  can  afford  out  of  their  scanty 
earnings. 

In  the  Bavarian  village  the  inns  were  filled  all 
through  the  summer  with  people  from  Nuremberg, 
Erlangen,  Augsburg,  Erfurth,  and  other  Bavarian 
towns.  The  inn-keeper  used  to  charge  five  shillings 
a  week  for  a  scrupulously  clean,  comfortably  furnished 
room,  breakfast  was  sixpence,  dinner  one  and  two- 
pence, and  supper  as  you  ordered  it.  For  dinner  they 
gave  you  good  soup,  Rindfleisch,  either  poultry  or 
roast  meat,  and  one  of  the  Mehlspeisen  for  which  Bavaria 
is  celebrated,  some  dish,  that  is,  made  with  eggs  and 
flour.  There  was  a  great  variety  of  them,  but  I  only 
remember  one  clearly,  because  I  was  impressed  by  its 
disreputable  name.  It  was  some  sort  of  small  pancake 
soaked  in  a  wine  sauce,  and  it  was  called  versqffene 
Jung  fern.  Most  of  these  inns  kept  no  servants,  and 
except  in  the  Kurhaus  there  was  not  a  black-coated 
waiter  in  the  place.  Our  inn-keeper  tilled  his  own 
fields,  grew  his  own  hops,  and  brewed  his  own  beer ; 
and  his  wife,  wearing  her  peasant's  costume,  did  all  the 
cooking  and  cleaning,  assisted  by  a  daughter  or  a 
cousin.  When  you  met  her  out  of  doors  she  would 
be  carrying  one  of  the  immense  loads  peasant  women 
do  carry  up  hill  and  down  dale  in  Germany.  She 


232  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

was  hale  and  hearty  in  her  middle  age,  and  always 
cheerful  and  obliging.  At  that  inn,  too,  we  never  had 
a  meal  indoors  from  May  till  October.  Everything 
was  brought  out  to  a  summer-house,  from  which  we 
looked  straight  down  the  village,  its  irregular  Noah's 
Ark-like  houses,  and  its  background  of  mountains  and 
forest. 

When  you  first  get  back  to  England  from  Germany, 
you  have  to  pull  yourself  together  and  remember  that 
in  your  own  country,  even  on  a  hot  still  summer 
evening,  you  cannot  sit  in  a  garden  where  a  band  is 
playing  and  have  your  dinner  in  the  open  air,  unless 
you  happen  to  be  within  reach  of  Earl's  Court.  In 
German  towns  there  are  always  numbers  of  restaurants 
in  which,  according  to  the  weather,  meals  can  be  served 
indoors  or  out.  You  see  what  use  people  make  of 
them  if,  for  instance,  you  happen  to  be  in  Hamburg 
on  a  hot  summer  night.  All  round  the  basin  of  the 
Alster  there  are  houses,  hotels,  and  gardens,  and  every 
public  garden  is  so  crowded  that  you  wonder  the 
waiters  can  pass  to  and  fro.  Bands  are  playing, 
lights  are  flashing,  the  little  sailing  boats  are  flitting 
about.  The  whole  city  after  its  day's  work  has  turned 
out  for  air  and  music  and  to  talk  with  friends.  And 
as  you  watch  the  scene  you  know  that  in  every  city, 
even  in  every  village  of  the  empire,  there  is  some  such 
gala  going  on :  in  gardens  going  down  to  the  Rhine 
from  the  old  Rhenish  towns ;  in  the  gardens  of  ancient 
castles  set  high  above  the  stifling  air  of  valleys ;  in  the 
forest  that  comes  to  the  very  edge  of  so  many  little 
German  towns ;  even  in  the  streets  of  towns  where  a 
table  set  on  the  pavement  will  be  pleasanter  than  in  a 
room  on  such  a  night  as  this.  You  can  sit  at  one  of 
these  restaurants  and  order  nothing  but  a  cup  of  coffee 
or  a  glass  of  beer ;  or  you  can  dine,  for  the  most  part, 


INNS  AND  RESTAURANTS  233 

well  and  cheaply.  If  you  order  a  halbe  Portion  of  any 
dish,  as  Germans  do,  you  will  be  served  with  more 
than  you  can  eat  of  it.  The  variety  offered  by  some 
of  the  restaurants  in  the  big  cities,  the  excellence  of 
the  cooking,  the  civilisation  of  the  appointments,  and 
the  service,  all  show  that  the  German  must  be  the  most 
industrious  creature  in  the  world,  and  the  thriftiest  and 
one  of  the  cleverest.  In  London  we  have  luxurious 
restaurants  for  people  who  can  spend  a  great  deal  of 
money,  but  in  Berlin  they  have  them  for  people  who 
cannot  spend  much.  That  is  the  difference  between  the 
two  cities.  How  Berlin  does  it  is  a  mystery.  In  the 
restaurants  I  have  seen  there  is  neither  noise  nor  bustle 
nor  garish  colours  nor  rough  service  nor  any  other  of 
the  miseries  we  find  in  our  own  cheap  eating-houses. 
In  one  of  them  the  walls  were  done  in  some  kind  of 
plain  fumed  wood  with  a  frieze  and  ceiling  of  soft  dull 
gold.  In  another  each  room  had  a  different  scheme 
of  colour. 

"  So  according  to  your  Stimmung  you  will  choose 
your  room,"  said  the  friends  who  took  me.  "  To-night 
we  are  rather  cheerful.  We  will  go  to  the  big  room 
on  the  first  floor.  That  is  all  pale  green  and  ivory." 

"  You  have  nothing  like  this  in  England,"  said  the 
artist  as  we  went  up  the  lift.  "  It  is  terrible  in  Eng- 
land. When  I  asked  for  my  lunch  at  three  or  four 
o'clock  I  was  told  that  lunch  was  over.  Das  hat  keinen 
Zweck) — I  want  my  lunch  when  I  am  hungry." 

"  But  you  are  terribly  behindhand  in  some  ways  in 
Berlin,"  I  said,  for  I  knew  the  artist  liked  an  argument. 
"  In  London  you  can  shop  all  through  the  night  by 
telephone.  It  is  most  convenient." 

"  Have  you  ever  done  it  ?  " 

"  I'm  not  on  the  telephone,  and  I  am  generally 
asleep  at  night.  But  other  people  .  .  ." 


234  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

"  Verriickt?  said  the  artist.  "  Who  in  his  senses 
wants  to  do  shopping  at  night  ?  Now  look  at  this 
room,  and  admit  that  you  have  nothing  at  all  like  it." 

The  first  swift  impression  of  the  place  was  that 
Liberty  had  brought  his  stuffs,  his  furniture,  and  his 
glass  from  London  and  set  up  as  a  restaurateur  in 
Berlin.  The  whole  thing  was  certainly  well  done.  It 
was  not  as  florid  and  fussy  as  our  expensive  restaurants. 
The  colours  were  quiet,  and  the  necessary  draperies 
plain.  The  glass  was  thin  and  elegant ;  so  were  the 
coffee  cups  ;  and  the  table  linen  was  white  and  fine. 
Nothing  about  it,  however,  would  be  worth  describing 
if  it  had  been  expensive.  But  the  menu,  which 
covered  four  closely  printed  pages,  showed  that  the 
most  expensive  dish  offered  there  cost  one  and  three- 
pence, while  the  greater  number  cost  ninepence,  six- 
pence, or  threepence  each.  The  hungry  man  would 
begin  with  crayfish,  which  were  offered  to  him  prepared 
in  ten  various  ways ;  for  the  Germans,  like  the  French, 
are  extremely  fond  of  crayfish.  He  would  have  them 
in  soup,  for  instance,  or  with  asparagus,  with  salad  or 
dressed  with  dill.  Then  he  would  find  the  week's  bill 
of  fare  on  his  card,  three  or  four  dishes  for  each  day, 
some  cooked  in  small  casseroles  and  served  so  to  any 
guest  who  orders  one.  If  it  was  a  Friday  he  could 
have  a  ragout  of  chicken  in  the  Bremen  style,  or  a  slice 
from  a  Hamburg  leg  of  mutton  with  cream  sauce 
and  celery  salad,  or  ox-tongue  cooked  with  young 
turnips.  If  he  was  a  Catholic  he  would  find  two  kinds 
of  fish  ready  for  him, — trout,  cooked  blue,  and  a  ragout 
of  crayfish  with  asparagus  and  baked  perch.  But  these 
are  just  the  special  dishes  of  the  day,  and  he  is  not 
bound  to  try  them.  There  are  seven  kinds  of  soup, 
including  real  turtle,  and  it  is  not  for  me  to  say  how 
real  turtle  can  be  supplied  in  Berlin  for  30  pfennig. 


INNS  AND  RESTAURANTS  235 

There  are  seven  kinds  of  fish  and  too  many  varieties 
of  meat,  poultry,  salads,  vegetables  and  sweets,  both  hot 
and  cold,  to  count.  A  man  can  have  any  kind  of 
cooking  he  fancies,  too;  his  steak  may  be  German, 
Austrian,  or  French ;  he  can  have  English  roast  beef, 
Russian  caviare,  a  Maltese  rice  pudding,  apples  from 
the  Tyrol,  wild  strawberries  from  a  German  forest,  all 
the  cheeses  of  France  and  England,  a  Welsh  rarebit, 
and  English  celery.  The  English  celery  is  as  mys- 
terious as  the  real  turtle,  for  it  was  offered  in  June. 
Pheasants  and  partridges,  I  can  honestly  say,  however, 
were  not  offered.  Under  the  head  of  game  there  were 
only  venison,  geese,  chickens,  and  pigeons. 

I  am  sorry  now  that  when  I  dined  at  this  restaurant 
I  did  not  order  real  turtle  soup,  Roast  beef  Engl.  mit 
Schmorkartoffeln,  celery,  and  a  Welsh  rarebit,  because 
then  I  should  have  discovered  whether  these  old  British 
friends  were  recognisable  in  their  Berlin  environment. 
But  it  was  more  amusing  at  the  time  to  ask  for  ham 
cooked  in  champagne  and  served  with  radish  sauce, 
and  other  curious  inviting  combinations. 

"  But  at  home,"  I  said  to  the  artist, — "  at  home  we 
just  eat  to  live.  We  have  a  great  contempt  for  people 
who  pay  much  attention  to  food." 

"  I  stayed  in  an  English  house  last  year,  and  never 
did  I  hear  so  much  about  food,"  said  he.  "  One  would 
eat  nothing  but  grape-nuts  and  cheese,  and  another 
swore  by  toast  and  hot  water  and  little  Pastetchen  of 
beef,  and  the  third  would  have  large  rice  puddings,  and 
the  fourth  asked  for  fruit  at  every  meal,  and  the  fifth 
said  all  the  others  were  wrong  and  that  he  wanted  a 
good  dinner.  The  poor  hostess  would  have  been  dis- 
tracted if  she  had  not  been  one  of  those  who  love  a 
new  fad  and  try  each  one  in  turn.  Also  there  were  two 
eminent  physicians  in  the  house,  and  one  of  these  drank 


236  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

champagne  every  night,  while  the  other  would  touch 
nothing  but  Perrier  and  said  champagne  was  poison. 
Directly  we  sat  down  we  discussed  these  things,  .  .  . 
and  everyone  assured  me  that  if  I  tried  his  regime  I 
should  improve  in  health  most  marvellously." 

"  Which  did  you  try  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  The  good  dinner  and  the  champagne,  of  course. 
But  I  did  not  find  they  affected  my  health  one  way  or 
the  other." 


CHAPTER  XXII 
LIFE    IN    LODGINGS 

AS  rents  are  high  in  Germany,  it  is  usual  for  people 
of  small  means  to  let  off  one  or  two  rooms, 
either  furnished  or  unfurnished.  But  it  is  not  usual  to 
supply  a  lodger  with  any  meal  except  his  coffee  and  rolls 
in  the  morning.  If  you  wish  to  take  lodgings  in  a 
German  town,  and  work  through  the  long  list  of  them 
in  a  local  paper,  you  will  probably  find  no  one  willing 
to  provide  for  you  in  the  English  fashion. 

"  Cooking !  "  they  say  with  horror, — "  cooking  ! 
You  want  to  eat  in  your  room.  No.  That  can  we 
not  undertake.  Coffee  in  the  morning,  yes ;  and  rolls 
with  it  and  butter  and  even  two  eggs,  but  nothing  fur- 
ther. Just  round  the  corner  in  the  Konigstrasse  are 
two  very  fine  restaurants,  where  the  Herrschaften  can 
eat  what  they  will  at  any  hour  of  the  day,  and  for 
moderate  prices." 

If  you  insist,  the  most  they  will  promise,  and  that  not 
willingly,  is  to  provide  you  with  a  knife  and  fork  and  a 
tablecloth  for  a  pyramid  of  courses  sent  hot  from  one 
of  the  very  fine  adjacent  restaurants  for  I  mark  or  i 
mark  20  pf.  Supper  in  Germany  is  the  easiest  meal  in 
the  day  to  provide,  as  you  buy  the  substantial  part  of  it 
at  a  Delikatessenhandlung,  and  find  that  even  a  German 
landlady  will  condescend  to  get  you  rolls  and  butter 

and  beer.    This  sounds  like  the  Simple  Life,  to  be  sure ; 

237 


238  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

j 

but  if  you  are  in  German  lodgings  for  any  length  of 
time  you  probably  desire  for  one  reason  or  the  other  to 
lead  it.  The  plan  of  having  your  dinner  sent  piping 
hot  from  a  restaurant  in  nice  clean  white  dishes  rather 
like  monster  souffte  dishes  is  not  a  bad  one  if  the 
restaurant  keeps  faith  with  you.  It  is  rather  amusing 
to  begin  at  the  top  with  soup  and  work  through  the 
various  surprises  and  temptations  of  the  pyramid  till 
you  get  to  B is kuit- Pudding  mit  Vanille  Sauce  at  the 
bottom.  But  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  restaurant 
fails  you,  sends  uneatable  food,  is  absurdly  unpunctual 
or  says  plainly  it  can't  be  bothered.  Then  you  have 
to  wander  about  and  out  of  doors  for  your  food  in  all 
weathers  and  all  states  of  health.  This  is  amusing  for 
a  time,  but  not  in  the  long  run.  It  is  astonishing  how 
tired  you  can  get  of  the  "  very  fine  "  restaurants  within 
reach,  of  their  waitresses,  their  furniture,  their  menus, 
and  their  daily  guests.  At  least,  this  is  so  in  a  small 
town  where  the  best  restaurant  is  not  "very  fine," 
although  both  food  and  service  will  be  better  than  in 
an  English  town  of  the  same  size.  If  you  are  in 
Berlin  and  can  go  to  the  good  restaurants,  there  you 
will  be  in  danger  of  becoming  a  gourmet  and  losing 
your  natural  affection  for  cold  mutton. 

In  a  university  or  a  big  commercial  town  it  is  easy 
to  get  rooms  for  less  than  we  pay  in  England ;  but  in 
a  small  Residenz  I  have  found  it  difficult.  There  were 
rooms  to  let,  but  no  one  wanted  us,  because  we  were 
not  officers  with  soldier  servants  to  wait  on  us ;  nor 
did  we  want  to  engage  rooms  as  the  officers  did  for  at 
least  six  months.  In  fact,  we  found  ourselves  as 
unpopular  as  ladies  are  in  a  London  suburb  where  all 
the  lodging-house  keepers  want  "  gentlemen  in  the 
city  "  who  are  away  all  day  and  give  no  trouble.  At 
last,  after  searching  through  every  likely  street  in  the 


LIFE  IN  LODGINGS  239 

town,  we  found  a  dentist  with  exuberant  manners,  who 
said  he  would  overlook  our  shortcomings,  and  allow  us 
to  inhabit  his  rooms  at  a  high  price  on  condition  we 
gave  no  trouble.  We  said  we  never  gave  trouble  any- 
where, and  left  both  hotels  and  lodging-houses  with  an 
excellent  character,  so  the  bargain  was  concluded.  I 
saw  that  his  wife  was  not  a  party  to  it,  but  he  over- 
ruled her,  and  as  he  was  a  big  red-faced  noisy  man, 
and  she  was  a  small  rat  of  a  woman,  I  thought  he 
would  continue  to  do  so.  One  is  always  making  these 
stupid  elementary  mistakes  about  one's  fellow-creatures. 
But  a  little  later  in  the  day  I  had  occasion  to  call  at 
the  rooms  to  complete  some  arrangement  about  luggage, 
and  then  the  wife  received  me  alone.  I  asked  her  if 
she  could  put  a  small  table  into  a  room  that  only  had 
a  big  one.  I  forget  why  I  wanted  it. 

"  Table ! "  she  said  rudely.  "  What  can  you  want 
another  table  for?  Isn't  that  one  enough?" 

"  I  should  like  another,"  I  said, — "  any  little  one 
would  do." 

"  I  don't  keep  tables  up  my  sleeve,"  said  she.  "  You 
see  what  you  can  have,  .  .  .  just  what  is  there.  If  it 
doesn't  suit  you  .  .  ." 

"  But  it  does  suit  me,"  I  said  hurriedly,  for  the  search 
had  been  long  and  exhausting,  and  the  rooms  were 
pleasant  enough.  I  thought  we  need  not  deal  much 
with  the  woman. 

"  No  meals  except  coffee  in  the  morning ;  you 
understand  that  ?  "  she  said  in  a  truculent  tone. 

"  Oh  yes,  I  understand.  We  shall  go  out  at  midday 
and  at  night.  Afternoon  tea  I  always  make  myself 
with  a  spirit  lamp  .  .  ." 

Never  in  my  life  have  I  been  so  startled.  I 
thought  the  woman  was  going  to  behave  like  a  rat 
in  a  corner,  and  fly  at  me.  She  shook  her  fist  and 


240  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

shouted  so  loud  that  she  brought  the  dentist  on  the 
scene. 

"  Spiritus"  she  screamed.  "  Spiritus — Spiritus  leid? 
ich  nicht" 

"Bless  us!"  I  said  in  English.  "What's  the 
matter  ?  " 

"  Was  ists  ?  "  said  the  dentist,  and  he  looked  down- 
right frightened. 

" Sie  will  kochen"  said  his  wife,  shaking  her  fist 
at  me  again.  "  She  has  a  spirit  lamp.  She  wants 
to  turn  my  beautiful  bestes  Zimmer  into  a  kitchen. 
She  will  take  all  the  polish  off  my  furniture,  just 
as  the  last  people  did  when  they  cooked  for  them- 
selves." 

"Cooked!"  I  said.  "Who  speaks  of  cooking? — I 
spoke  of  a  cup  of  tea." 

"  Spiritus  leicT  ich  nicht"  shrieked  the  woman. 

"  No,"  said  the  dentist,  "  we  can't  have  cooking  here." 

"  Spiritus  leid*  .  .    " 

But  I  fled.  Luckily,  we  had  not  paid  any  rent  in 
advance.  I  made  up  my  mind  that  I  would  never 
confess  to  my  small  harmless  Etna  in  German  lodgings 
again,  and  would  bolt  the  door  while  I  boiled  water  for 
tea  in  it.  We  found  rooms  after  another  weary  search, 
but  they  were  extremely  noisy  and  uncomfortable.  We 
had  to  take  them  for  six  weeks,  and  could  only  endure 
them  for  a  fortnight,  and  though  we  paid  them  the  full 
six  weeks'  rent  when  we  left,  they  charged  us  for  every 
jug  of  hot  water  we  had  used,  and  added  a  Trinkgeld 
for  the  servant. 

'*  We  did  not  engage  to  pay  extra  either  for  hot 
water  or  for  Trinkgeld"  we  said,  turning,  as  worms  will 
even  in  a  Residenz,  where  everyone  is  a  worm  who  is  not 
Militdr. 

"  But  Englander  never  give  a   Trinkgeld.     That  is 


LIFE  IN  LODGINGS  241 

why  we  have  put  it  in  the  bill.  The  girl  expects  it, 
and  has  earned  it." 

"  The  girl  will  have  it,"  we  said  ;  "  but  we  shall  give 
it  her  ourselves.  And  what  have  you  to  say  about  the 
hot  water  ?  " 

"  Without  coal  it  is  impossible  to  have  hot  water. 
We  let  you  our  rooms,  but  we  did  not  let  you  our  coal. 
It  is  quite  simple.  Have  you  any  other  complaint  to 
make  ?  " 

We  had,  but  we  did  not  make  them.  We  went  to 
one  of  the  big  cities,  where  the  civilian  is  still  a  worm, 
but  where  he  has  a  large  number  and  variety  of  other 
worms  to  keep  him  company.  In  Berlin  or  Hamburg 
or  Leipzig  there  are  always  furnished  rooms  delighted 
to  receive  you.  There  may  be  a  difficulty,  however,  if 
you  are  a  musician.  The  police  come  in  with  their 
regulations ;  or  your  fellow-lodgers  may  be  students  of 
medicine  or  philosophy,  and  driven  wild  by  your  har- 
monies. I  knew  a  young  musician  who  always  took 
rooms  in  the  noisiest  street  in  Berlin,  and  practised  with 
his  windows  open.  He  said  the  din  of  electric  trams, 
overhead  trains,  motor  cars,  and  heavy  lorries  helped 
his  landlady  and  her  family  to  suffer  a  Beethoven 
sonata  quite  gladly. 

One  of  the  insoluble  mysteries  of  German  life  is  the 
cheapness  of  furnished  lodgings  as  compared  with  the 
high  rent  and  rates.  To  be  sure,  the  landlady  does  not 
cook  for  you,  and  the  bed-sitting-room  is  not  considered 
sordid  in  Germany.  In  fact,  the  separate  sitting-room 
is  almost  unknown,  though  it  is  easy  to  arrange  one  by 
shifting  some  furniture.  The  pattern  of  the  room  and 
its  appointments  hardly  vary  in  any  part  of  Germany, 
though  of  course  the  size  and  quality  vary  with  the  price. 
If  you  take  a  small  room  you  have  one  straight  window, 
and  if  you  take  a  large  one  you  have  several.  Or  you 
16 


242  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

may  have  a  broad  balcony  window  opening  on  to  a 
balcony.  You  have  the  parqueted  or  painted  floor, 
the  porcelain  stove,  the  sofa,  the  table,  the  wooden  bed- 
stead, and  the  wooden  hanging  cupboard  wherever  you 
are.  It  is  always  sensible,  comfortable  furniture,  and 
usually  plain.  When  people  over  there  know  no  better 
they  buy  themselves  tawdry  horrors,  just  as  they  do 
here.  The  German  manufacturers  flood  the  world  with 
such  things.  But  people  who  let  lodgings  put  their 
treasures  in  a  sacred  room  they  call  das  beste  Zimmer> 
and  only  use  on  festive  occasions.  They  fob  you  oft 
with  old-fashioned  stuff  they  do  not  value,  a  roomy 
solid  cupboard,  a  family  sofa,  a  chest  of  drawers  black 
with  age,  and  a  hanging  mirror  framed  in  old  elm- 
wood  ;  and  if  it  were  not  for  a  bright  green  rep 
tablecloth,  snuff-coloured  curtains,  and  a  wall  paper 
with  a  brown  background  and  yellow  snakes  on  it,  you 
would  like  your  quarters  very  well  indeed.  Rooms  are 
usually  let  by  the  month,  except  in  watering-places, 
where  weekly  prices  prevail.  In  Leipzig  you  can  get 
a  room  for  los.  a  month.  It  will  be  a  parterre  or  a 
fourth- floor  room,  rather  gloomy  and  rather  shabby, 
but  a  possible  room  for  a  student  who  happens  to  be 
hard  up.  For  £i  a  month  you  can  get  a  room  on  a 
higher  floor,  and  better  furnished,  while  for  £it  los.  a 
month  in  Hamburg  I  myself  have  had  two  well- 
furnished  rooms  commanding  a  fine  view  of  the  Alster, 
and  one  of  them  so  large  that  in  winter  it  was  nearly 
impossible  to  keep  warm.  Then  my  Hamburg  friends 
told  me  I  was  paying  too  much,  and  that  they  could 
have  got  better  lodgings  for  less  money.  They  were 
nearer  the  sky  than  I  should  like  in  these  days,  but 
the  old  German  system  of  letting  the  higher  flats  in 
a  good  house  for  a  low  rent  benefits  people  who  care 
about  a  "  select "  neighbourhood  and  yet  cannot  pay 


LIFE  IN  LODGINGS  243 

very  much.  The  modern  system  of  lifts  will  gradually 
make  it  impossible  to  get  a  flat  or  lodgings  in  a  good 
street  without  paying  as  much  for  the  fifth  floors  as  for 
the  first. 

You  do  not  see  much  of  a  German  landlady,  as  she 
does  not  cater  for  you.  She  is  often  a  widow,  and 
when  you  know  the  rent  of  a  flat  you  wonder  how  she 
squeezes  a  living  out  of  what  her  lodgers  pay  her.  She 
cannot  even  nourish  herself  with  their  scraps,  or  warm 
herself  at  a  kitchen  fire  for  which  they  pay.  Some  of 
Jhem  perform  prodigies  of  thrift,  especially  when  they 
have  children  to  feed  and  educate.  At  the  end  of  a 
long  severe  winter,  when  the  Alster  had  been  frozen  for 
months,  I  found  out  by  chance  that  my  landlady,  a  sad 
aged  widow  with  one  little  boy,  had  never  lighted  her- 
self a  fire.  She  let  every  room  of  her  large  flat,  except 
a  kitchen  and  a  Kammer  opening  out  of  it.  The  little 
food  she  needed  she  cooked  on  an  oil  stove,  at  night 
she  had  a  lamp,  and  of  course  she  never  by  any  chance 
opened  a  window.  She  said  she  could  not  afford  coals, 
and  that  her  son  and  she  managed  to  keep  warm.  The 
miracle  is  that  they  both  kept  alive  and  well.  Another 
German  landlady  was  of  a  different  type,  a  big  buxom 
bustling  creature,  who  spent  most  of  the  day  in  her 
husband's  coal  sheds,  helping  him  with  his  books  and 
taking  orders.  Although  she  was  so  busy  she  under- 
took to  cook  for  me,  and  kept  her  promise  honourably ; 
and  she  cooked  for  herself,  her  husband,  and  their  work- 
people. She  used  sometimes  to  show  me  the  huge 
dishes  of  food  they  were  about  to  consume,  food  that 
was  cheap  to  buy  and  nourishing  to  eat,  but  troublesome 
to  prepare.  She  did  all  her  own  washing  too,  and  dried 
it  in  the  narrow  slip  of  a  room  her  husband  and  she 
used  for  all  purposes.  I  discovered  this  by  going  in  to 
see  her  when  she  was  ill  one  day,  and  finding  rows  of 


244  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

wet  clothes  hung  on  strings  right  across  her  bed.  I 
made  no  comment,  for  nothing  that  is  an  outrage  of 
the  first  laws  of  hygiene  will  surprise  you  if  you  have 
gone  here  and  there  in  the  byways  of  Germany.  An 
English  girl  told  me  that  when  she  was  recovering  from 
a  slight  attack  of  cholera  in  a  Rhenish  Pension,  they 
were  quite  hurt  because  she  refused  stewed  cranberries. 
"  Das  schadet  nichts,  das  ist  gesund?  they  said.  I  could 
hear  them  say  it.  Only  the  summer  before  a  kindly 
hotel-keeper  had  brought  me  a  ragout  of  Schweinefleisch 
and  vanilla  ice  under  similar  circumstances.  The  German 
constitution  seems  able  to  survive  anything,  even  roast 
goose  at  night  at  the  age  of  three. 

A  Pension  in  Germany  costs  from  £3  a  month  up- 
wards. That  is  to  say,  you  will  get  offers  of  a  room 
and  full  board  for  this  sum,  but  I  must  admit  that  I 
never  tried  one  at  so  low  a  rate,  and  should  not  expect 
it  to  be  comfortable.  Rent  and  food  are  too  dear  in 
the  big  towns  to  make  a  reasonable  profit  possible  on 
such  terms,  unless  the  household  is  managed  on  starva- 
tion lines.  To  have  a  comfortable  room  and  sufficient 
food,  you  must  pay  from  £5  to  £7  a  month,  and  then 
if  you  choose  carefully  you  will  be  satisfied.  The  society 
is  usually  cosmopolitan  in  these  establishments,  and  the 
German  spoken  is  a  warning  rather  than  a  lesson.  It  is 
not  really  German  life  that  you  see  in  this  way,  though 
the  proprietress  and  her  assistants  may  be  German.  In 
most  of  the  university  towns  some  private  families  take 
"  paying  guests,"  and  when  they  are  agreeable  people 
this  is  a  pleasanter  way  of  life  than  any  Pension. 

Before  you  have  been  in  Germany  a  fortnight  the 
police  expects  to  know  all  about  you.  You  have  to 
give  them  your  father's  Christian  and  surname,  and  tell 
them  how  he  earned  his  living,  and  where  he  was  born  ; 
also  your  mother's  Christian  and  maiden  name,  and 


LIFE  IN  LODGINGS  245 

where  she  was  born.  You  must  declare  your  religion, 
and  if  you  are  married  give  your  husband's  Christian 
and  surname ;  also  where  he  was  born,  and  what  he 
does  for  a  living.  If  you  happen  to  do  anything  your- 
self, though,  you  need  not  mention  it.  They  do  not 
expect  a  woman  to  be  anything  further  than  married 
or  single.  But  you  must  say  when  and  where  you  were 
last  in  Germany,  and  how  often  you  have  been,  and 
why  you  have  come  now,  and  what  you  are  doing,  and 
how  long  you  propose  to  stay.  They  tell  you  in  London 
'you  do  not  need  a  passport  in  Germany,  and  they  tell 
you  in  Berlin  that  you  must  either  produce  one  or  be 
handed  over  for  inquiry  to  your  Embassy.  Last  year 
when  I  was  there  I  produced  one  twenty-three  years 
old.  I  had  not  troubled  to  get  a  new  one,  but  I  came 
across  this,  quite  yellow  with  age,  and  I  thought  it 
might  serve  to  make  some  official  happy;  for  I  had 
once  seen  my  husband  get  himself,  me,  and  our  bicycles 
over  the  German  frontier  and  into  Switzerland,  and  next 
morning  back  into  Germany,  by  showing  the  gendarmes 
on  the  bridge  his  C.T.C.  ticket.  I  cannot  say  that  my 
ancient  passport  made  my  official  exactly  happy. 
Twenty-three  years  ago  he  was  certainly  in  a  Steck- 
kissen,  and  no  doubt  he  felt  that  in  those  days,  in  a 
world  without  him  to  set  it  right,  anything  might  happen. 

"  Twenty-three  years,"  he  bellowed  at  the  top  of  his 
voice,  for  he  saw  that  I  was  fremd,  and  wished  to  make 
himself  clear.  We  are  not  the  only  people  who  scream 
at  foreigners  that  they  may  understand.  "  Twenty- 
three  years.  But  it  is  a  lifetime." 

It  was  for  him  no  doubt.  I  admitted  that  twenty- 
three  years  was — well,  twenty -three  years,  and  explained 
that  I  had  been  told  at  a  Reisebureau  that  a  passport 
was  unnecessary. 

"  They  know  nothing  in  England,"  he  said  gloomily. 


246  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

"  With  us  a  passport  is  necessary  ;  but  what  is  a  passport 
twenty-three  years  old  ?  " 

I  admitted  that,  from  the  official  point  of  view,  it  was 
not  much,  and  he  made  no  further  difficulties.  As  a 
rule  you  need  not  go  to  the  police  bureau  at  all.  The 
people  you  are  with  will  get  the  necessary  papers,  and 
fill  them  in  for  you  ;  but  I  wanted  to  see  whether  the 
German  jack-in-office  was  as  bad  as  his  reputation  makes 
him.  Germans  themselves  often  complain  bitterly  of 
the  treatment  they  receive  at  the  hands  of  these  lower 
class  officials. 

"  I  went  to  the  police  station,"  said  a  German  lady 
who  lived  in  England,  and  was  in  her  own  country  on 
a  visit.  "  I  went  to  anmelden  myself,  but  not  one  of  the 
men  in  the  office  troubled  to  look  up.  When  I  had 
stood  there  till  I  was  tired  I  said  that  I  wished  someone 
to  attend  to  me.  Every  pen  stopped,  every  head  was 
raised,  astounded  by  my  impertinence.  But  no  one 
took  any  notice  of  my  request.  I  waited  a  little  longer, 
and  then  fetched  myself  a  chair  that  someone  had  left 
unoccupied.  I  did  not  do  it  to  make  a  sensation.  I 
was  tired.  But  every  pen  again  stopped,  and  one  in 
authority  asked  in  a  voice  like  thunder  what  I  made 
here.  I  said  that  I  had  come  to  anmelden  myself,  and 
he  began  to  ask  the  usual  questions  with  an  air  of  sus- 
picion that  was  highly  offensive.  You  can  see  for 
yourself  that  I  do  not  look  like  an  anarchist  or  anything 
but  what  I  am,  a  respectable  married  woman  of  middle 
age.  I  told  the  man  everything  he  wanted  to  know, 
and  at  every  item  he  grunted  as  if  he  knew  it  was  a 
lie.  In  the  end  he  asked  me  very  rudely  how  long  a 
stay  I  meant  to  make  in  Germany. 

"  Not  a  day  longer  than  I  can  help,"  I  said  ;  "  for  your 
manners  do  not  please  me." 

All  the  pens  stopped  again  till  I  left  the  office,  and 


LIFE  IN  LODGINGS  247 

when  I  got  back  to  my  mother  she  wept  bitterly ;  for 
she  said  that  I  should  be  prosecuted  for  Beamtenbeleidi- 
gung  and  put  in  prison. 

"  But  the  really  interesting  fact  about  the  system  is 
that  it  doesn't  work,"  said  a  German  to  me ;  "  when 
I  wanted  my  papers  a  little  while  ago  I  could  not 
get  them.  Nothing  about  me  could  be  discovered. 
Officially  I  did  not  exist." 

Yet  he  had  inherited  a  name  famous  all  over  the 
world,  was  a  distinguished  scientific  man  himself,  and 
had  been  born  in  the  city  where  his  existence  was  not 
known  to  the  police. 

"  Take  care  you  don't  go  in  at  an  Ausgang  or  out 
at  an  Eingang"  said  an  Englishman  who  had  just  come 
back  from  Berlin.  "  Take  care  you  don't  try  to  buy 
stamps  at  the  Post  Office  out  of  your  turn.  Remember 
that  you  can't  choose  your  cab  when  you  arrive.  A 
policeman  gives  you  a  number,  and  you  have  to  hunt 
amongst  a  crowd  of  cabs  for  that  number,  even  if  it  is 
pouring  with  rain.  Remember  that  the  police  decides 
that  you  must  buy  your  opera  tickets  on  a  Sunday 
morning,  and  stand  queue  for  hours  till  you  get  them. 
If  you  have  a  cold  in  your  head,  stay  at  home.  Last 
winter  a  man  was  arrested  for  sneezing  loudly.  It  was 
considered  Beamtenbeleidigung.  The  Englishwoman 
who  walked  on  the  grass  in  the  Tiergarten  was  not 
arrested,  because  the  official  who  saw  her  died  of  shock 
at  the  sight,  and  could  not  perform  his  duty." 

Wherever  you  go  in  Germany  you  hear  stories  of 
police  interference  and  petty  tyranny,  and  it  is  mere 
luck  if  you  do  not  innocently  transgress  some  of  their 
fussy  pedantic  regulations.  In  South  Germany  I  once 
put  a  cream  jug  on  my  window-sill  to  keep  a  little  milk 
cool  for  the  afternoon.  The  jug  was  so  small  and  the 
window  so  high  that  it  can  hardly  have  been  visible 


248  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

from  the  street,  but  my  landlady  came  to  me  excitedly 
and  said  the  police  would  be  on  her  before  the  day  was 
out  if  the  jug  was  left  there.  The  police  allowed  nothing 
on  a  window-sill  in  that  town,  lest  it  should  fall  on  a 
citizen's  head.  Each  town  or  district  has  its  own  re- 
strictions, its  own  crimes.  In  one  you  will  hear  that  a 
butcher  boy  is  not  allowed  on  the  side-  path  carrying  his 
tray  of  meat.  If  a  policeman  catches  him  at  it,  he,  or  his 
employer,  is  fined.  In  another  town  the  awning  from 
a  shop  window  must  not  exceed  a  certain  length,  and 
you  are  told  of  a  poor  widow,  who,  having  just  had  a 
new  one  put  up  at  great  expense,  was  compelled  by  the 
police  to  take  the  whole  thing  down,  because  the  flounce 
was  a  quarter  of  an  inch  longer  than  the  regulations 
prescribed.  You  hear  of  a  poor  man  laboriously 
building  a  toy  brick  wall  round  the  garden  in  his 
Hof,  and  having  to  pull  it  to  pieces  because  "  building  " 
is  not  allowed  except  with  police  permission.  In  some 
towns  the  length  of  a  woman's  gown  is  decided  in  the 
Polizeibureau,  and  the  officers  fine  any  woman  whose 
skirt  touches  the  ground.  In  one  town  you  may  take 
a  dog  out  without  a  muzzle ;  in  another  it  is  a  crime. 
A  merchant  on  his  way  to  his  office,  in  a  city  where 
there  was  a  muzzling  order,  found  to  his  annoyance, 
one  morning,  that  his  mother's  dog  had  followed  him 
unmuzzled.  He  had  no  string  with  him,  he  could  not 
persuade  the  dog  to  return,  and  he  could  not  go  back 
with  it,  because  he  had  an  important  appointment.  So 
he  risked  it  and  went  on.  Before  long,  however,  he 
met  a  policeman.  The  usual  questions  were  asked,  his 
name  and  address  were  taken,  and  he  was  told  that  he 
would  be  fined.  Hardly  had  he  got  to  the  end  of  the 
street  when  he  met  a  second  policeman.  He  explained 
that  the  matter  was  settled,  but  this  was  not  the  opinion 
of  the  policeman.  Was  the  dog  not  at  large,  unmuzzled, 


LIFE  IN  LODGINGS  249 

on  his  the  policeman's  beat  ?  With  other  policemen  he 
had  nothing  to  do.  The  dog  was  his  discovery,  the 
name  and  address  of  the  owner  were  required,  and  there 
was  no  doubt,  in  the  policeman's  mind,  that  the  owner 
would  have  to  pay  a  second  fine.  The  merchant  went 
his  ways,  still  followed  by  an  unmuzzled  unled  dog. 
Before  long  he  met  a  third  policeman,  gave  his  name 
and  address  a  third  time,  and  was  assured  that  he  would 
have  to  pay  a  third  time. 

"  Dann  war  es  mir  zu  bunt"  said  the  merchant,  and 
he  picked  up  the  dog  and  carried  it  the  rest  of  the  way 
to  his  office.  When  he  got  there  he  sent  it  home  in  a 
cab. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
SUMMER  RESORTS 

IF  you  choose  to  leave  the  railroad  you  may  still 
travel  by  diligence  in  Germany,  and  rumble  along 
the  roads  in  its  stuffy  interior.  As  you  pass  through  a 
village  the  driver  blows  his  horn,  old  and  young  run 
out  to  enjoy  the  sensation  of  the  day,  the  geese  cackle 
and  flutter  from  you  in  the  dust,  you  catch  glimpses 
of  a  cobble-stoned  market-place,  a  square  church-tower 
with  a  stork's  nest  on  its  summit,  Noah's  Ark-like  houses 
with  thatched  or  gabled  roofs,  tumble-down  balconies, 
and  outside  staircases  of  wood.  Sometimes  when  the 
official  coach  is  crowded  you  may  have  an  open 
carriage  given  you  without  extra  charge,  but  you  cannot 
expect  that  to  happen  often ;  nor  will  you  often  be 
driven  by  postillion  nowadays.  Indeed,  for  all  I  know 
the  last  one  may  have  vanished  and  been  replaced  by  a 
motor  bus.  You  can  take  one  to  a  mountain  inn  in 
the  Black  Forest  nowadays,  over  a  pass  I  travelled  a 
few  years  ago  in  a  mail  coach.  In  those  times  it  was 
a  jog-trot  journey  occupying  the  long  lazy  hours  of  a 
summer  morning.  I  suppose  that  now  you  whizz  and 
hustle  through  the  lovely  forest  scenery  pursued  by 
clouds  of  dust  and  offended  by  the  fumes  of  petrol,  but 
no  doubt  you  get  to  your  destination  quicker  than  you 
used.  The  pleasantest  way  to  travel  in  Germany,  if 

you    are    young    and    strong,  is  on    your  feet.      It  is 

250 


A    (1KRMAN    FORESTER    AND   HIS   WIFE 


SUMMER  RESORTS  251 

enchanting  to  walk  day  after  day  through  the  cool 
scented  forest  and  sleep  at  night  in  one  of  the  clean 
country  inns.  You  must  choose  your  district  and  your 
inn,  for  if  you  went  right  off  the  traveller's  track  and 
came  to  a  peasant's  house  you  would  find  nothing 
approaching  the  civilisation  of  an  English  farmhouse. 
But  in  most  of  the  beautiful  country  districts  of 
Germany  there  are  fine  inns,  and  there  are  invariably 
good  roads  leading  to  them.  This  way  of  travelling  is 
too  tame  for  English  people  as  a  rule.  They  laugh  at 
the  broad  well-made  path  winding  up  the  side  of  a 
German  mountain,  and  still  more  at  the  hotel  or 
restaurant  to  be  found  at  the  top.  From  the  English 
point  of  view  a  walk  of  this  kind  is  too  tame  and  easy 
either  for  health  or  pleasure.  But  the  beauty  of  it, 
especially  in  early  summer,  can  never  be  forgotten  ;  and 
so  it  is  worth  while,  even  if  you  are  young  and  cherish 
a  proper  scorn  for  broad  roads  and  good  dinners.  You 
would  probably  come  across  some  dinners  that  were 
not  good,  tough  veal,  for  instance,  and  greasy  vegetables. 
The  roads  you  would  have  to  accept,  and  walk  them 
if  you  choose  in  tennis  shoes.  Indeed,  you  would  for- 
get the  road  and  eat  the  dinner  unattending;  for  all 
that's  made  would  be  a  green  thought  in  a  green  shade 
for  you  by  the  end  of  the  day,  and  as  you  shut  your 
eyes  at  night  you  would  see  forest,  forest  with  the 
sunlight  on  the  young  tips  of  the  pines,  forest  unfolding 
itself  from  earth  to  sky  as  you  climbed  hour  after  hour 
close  to  the  ferns  and  boulders  of  the  foaming 
mountain  stream  your  pathway  followed,  forest  too  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  valley,  with  wastes  of  golden 
broom  here  and  there,  and  fields  of  rye  and  barley 
swept  gently  by  the  breeze.  You  may  walk  day  by 
day  in  Germany  through  such  a  paradise  as  this,  and 
meet  no  one  but  a  couple  of  children  gathering  wild 


252  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

strawberries,  or  an  old  peasant  carrying  faggots,  or  the 
goose-girl  herding  her  fussy  flock.  You  may  even 
spend  your  summer  holiday  in  a  crowded  watering- 
place,  and  yet  escape  quite  easily  into  the  heart  of  the 
forest  where  the  crowd  never  comes.  The  crowd  sits 
about  on  benches  planted  by  a  Verschonerungsverein 
within  a  mile  of  their  hotel,  or  on  the  verandah  of  the 
hotel  itself.  Some  of  the  benches  will  command  a 
view,  and  these  will  be  most  in  demand.  Those  that 
are  nearly  a  mile  away  will  be  reached  by  energetic 
elderly  ladies,  and  at  dinner  you  will  hear  that  they 
have  been  to  the  Rabenstein  this  morning,  and  that 
the  Aussicht  was  prachtvoll  and  the  Luft  herrlich,  but 
that  they  must  decline  to  go  farther  afield  this  after- 
noon as  the  morning's  exertions  have  tired  them.  But 
some  of  die  Herren  say  they  are  ready  for  anything, 
and  even  propose  to  scale  the  mountain  behind  the 
hotel  and  drink  a  glass  of  beer  at  the  top.  You  readily 
agree  to  go  with  them,  for  by  this  time  you  know  that 
even  if  you  are  a  poor  walker  you  can  toddle  half 
way  up  a  German  hill  and  down  again ;  and  the  hotel 
itself  has  been  built  high  above  the  valley.  But  after 
dinner  you  find  that  nearly  everyone  disappears  for  a 
siesta,  while  the  few  who  keep  outside  are  asleep  over 
their  coffee  and  cigar.  Even  Skat  hardly  keeps  awake 
the  three  Herren  who  proposed  a  walk  ;  and  your  friend 
the  Frau  Geheimrath  Schultze  warns  you  solemnly 
against  the  insanity  of  stirring  a  step  before  sundown ; 
for  summer  in  South  Germany  is  summer  indeed. 
The  sun  comes  suddenly  with  power  and  glory,  bursting 
every  sheathed  bud  and  ripening  crops  in  such  a  hurry 
that  you  walk  through  new  mown  hayfields  while  your 
English  calendar  tells  you  it  is  still  spring.  Later  in 
the  year  the  heat  is  often  intense  all  through  the 
middle  of  the  day,  and  the  young  men  who  make  their 


SUMMER  RESORTS  253 

excursions  on  foot  start  at  dawn,  so  that  they  may 
arrive  at  a  resting  place  by  ten  or  eleven.  "  For  many 
years  our  boys  have  wandered  cheaply  and  simply 
through  their  German  Fatherland,"  says  a  leaflet 
advertising  a  society  that  organises  walking  tours  for 
girls ;  Saturday  afternoon  walks,  Sunday  walks,  and 
holiday  walks  extending  over  six  or  eight  days. 
"  Simplicity,  cheerful  friendly  intercourse,  gaiety  in  fresh 
air,  these  are  the  companions  of  our  pilgrimage.  .  .  . 
We  wish  to  provide  the  German  nation  with  mothers 
'who  are  at  home  in  woods  and  meadows,  who  have 
learned  to  observe  the  beauties  of  nature,  who  have 
strengthened  their  health  and  their  preceptions  of  every- 
thing that  is  great  and  beautiful  by  happy  walks.  .  .  . 
Anyone  wanderfroh  who  has  been  at  a  higher  school 
or  who  is  still  attending  one  is  eligible.  The  card  of 
membership  only  costs  3  marks  for  a  single  member 
and  4  marks  for  a  whole  family.  Some  of  the 
excursions  are  planned  to  include  brother  pilgrims,  and 
their  character  is  gay  and  cheerful,  without  flirting  or 
coquetry,  a  genuine  friendly  intercourse  between  girls 
and  boys,  young  men  and  maidens,  a  pure  and  beautiful 
companionship  such  as  no  dancing  lesson  and  no 
ballroom  can  create,  and  which  is  nevertheless  the  best 
training  for  life."  So  nowadays  gangs  of  girls,  and 
even  mixed  gangs  of  boys  and  girls,  are  to  swarm 
through  the  pleasant  forests  of  Germany,  ascend  the 
easy  pathways  of  her  mountains,  and  fill  her  country 
inns  to  overflowing.  How  horrified  the  little  Backfisch 
would  have  been  at  such  a  suggestion,  how  unmaidenly 
her  excellent  aunt  would  have  deemed  it,  how  pro- 
foundly they  would  both  have  disapproved  of  any 
exercise  that  heightens  the  colour  or  disturbs  the 
neatness  of  a  young  lady's  toilet.  I  myself  have  heard 
German  men  become  quite  violent  in  their  condemnation 


254  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

of  Englishwomen  who  play  games  or  take  walks  that 
make  them  temporarily  dishevelled.  It  never  seemed 
to  occur  to  them  that  a  woman  might  think  their 
displeasure  at  her  appearance  of  less  account  than  her 
own  enjoyment.  "  No,"  they  said,  "  ask  not  that  we 
should  admire  Miss  Smith.  She  has  just  come  in  from 
a  six  hours'  walk  with  her  brother.  Her  face  is  as  red 
as  a  poppy,  her  blouse  is  torn,  and  her  boots  are  thick 
and  muddy." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  had  not  asked  them  to  admire 
Miss  Smith.  I  knew  that  the  lady  they  admired  was 
arch,  and  had  a  persuasive  giggle.  Nevertheless  I  tried 
to  break  a  lance  for  my  countrywoman. 

"  You  will  see,"  I  assured  them, "  she  will  remove  the 
torn  blouse  and  the  muddy  boots ;  and  when  she 
comes  down  her  face  will  be  quite  pale." 

"  But  she  often  looks  like  that,"  said  one  of  the  men. 
"  At  least  once  a  day  she  plays  a  game  or  takes  a  walk 
that  is  more  of  a  strain  on  her  appearance  than  it  should 
be.  A  young  woman  must  always  consider  what  effect 
things  have  on  her  appearance." 
"  Why  ?  " 

"  Why  ? — Because  she  is  a  woman.  There  is  no 
sense  in  a  question  like  that.  It  goes  back  to  the 
beginning  of  all  things.  It  is  unanswerable.  Every 
young  woman  wishes  to  please." 

"  But  is  it  not  conceivable,"  I  asked,  "  that  a  young 
woman  may  sometimes  wish  to  please  herself  even  at 
the  expense  of  her  appearance.  Miss  Smith  assures 
me  that  she  enjoys  long  walks  and  games,  —  oh, 
games  that  you  have  not  seen  her  play  here — 
hockey,  for  instance,  and  cricket." 

"  Verruckt !  "  said  the  men  in  chorus.  "  A  young 
woman  should  not  think  of  herself  at  all.  The  Almighty 
has  created  her  to  please  us,  and  it  does  not  please  us 


SUMMER  RESORTS  255 

when  she  wears  muddy  boots  and  is  as  red  as  a  poppy ; 
at  least,  not  while  she  is  young.  When  she  is  married, 
and  her  place  is  in  the  kitchen,  she  may  be  as  red  as 
she  pleases.  That  is  a  different  matter." 

"  Is  it  ?  "  I  said,  and  I  wanted  to  ask  why  again  ;  but 
I  held  my  tongue.  Some  questions,  as  they  said,  lead 
one  too  far  afield. 

The  majority  of  visitors  at  a  German  watering-place 
take  very  little  exercise  of  any  kind.  They  sit  about 
the  forest  as  our  seaside  visitors  sit  about  the  sands, 
and  though  they  cannot  fill  in  their  mornings  by  sea 
bathing,  there  are  often  medicinal  baths  that  take  as 
much  time.  Then  the  Badearzt  probably  prescribes 
so  many  glasses  of  water  from  his  favourite  spring  each 
day,  and  a  short  walk  after  each  glass,  and  a  long  rest 
after  the  midday  dinner.  Dinner  is  the  really  serious 
business  of  the  day,  and  often  occupies  two  hours. 
Where  there  is  still  a  table  d'hote  it  is  a  tedious,  noisy 
affair,  conducted  in  a  stuffy  room,  and  even  if  you  are 
greedy  enough  to  like  the  good  things  brought  round 
you  wish  very  soon  that  you  were  on  a  Cumberland 
fell-side  with  a  mutton  sandwich  and  a  mountain  stream. 
You  wish  it  even  although  you  hate  mutton  sandwiches 
and  like  meringues  filled  with  Alpine  strawberries  and 
whipped  cream ;  for  the  clatter  and  the  clack  going  on 
around  you,  and  the  asphyxiating  air,  bring  on  a  de- 
moralising somnolence  that  you  despise  and  cannot 
easily  throw  off.  You  sit  about  as  lazily  as  anyone  else 
half  through  the  golden  afternoon,  drink  a  cup  of  coffee 
at  four  o'clock,  look  at  mountains  of  cake,  and  then 
start  for  the  restaurant,  which  is  said  to  be  eine  gute 
Stunde  from  the  hotel.  You  find,  as  you  expected, 
that  you  saunter  gently  uphill  on  a  broad  winding  road 
through  the  forest,  and  that  you  have  a  charming  walk, 
but  not  what  anyone  in  this  country  would  call  exercise 


256  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

till  they  were  about  seventy.  In  case  you  should  be 
weary  you  pass  seats  every  hundred  yards  or  so,  and 
when  you  have  made  your  ascent  you  are  received  by 
a  bustling  waiter  or  a  waitress  in  costume,  who  expects 
to  serve  you  with  beer  or  coffee  before  you  venture 
down  the  hill  again.  By  the  time  you  get  back  to  the 
hotel  everyone  is  streaming  in  to  supper,  which  is  not 
as  long  as  dinner,  but  quite  as  noisy.  After  supper 
everyone  sits  about  the  verandah  or  the  garden.  The 
men  play  cards,  and  smoke  and  drink  coffee  and  Kirsch, 
the  married  women  talk  and  do  embroidery,  the  maidens 
stroll  about  in  twos  and  threes  or  sit  down  to  Halma. 
There  are  never  many  young  men  in  these  summer 
hotels,  and  the  few  there  are  herd  with  the  older  men 
or  with  each  other  more  than  young  men  do  in  this 
country.  What  we  understand  by  flirtation  is  not 
encouraged,  unless  it  is  almost  sure  to  lead  to  marriage ; 
and  what  the  Germans  understand  by  flirtation  is  justly 
considered  scandalous  and  reprehensible.  For  the 
Germans  have  taken  the  word  into  use,  but  taken  away 
the  levity  and  innocence  of  its  meaning.  They  make 
it  a  term  of  serious  reproach,  and  those  who  dislike  us 
condemn  the  shocking  prevalence  of  Flirt  (they  make 
a  noun  of  the  verb)  in  our  decadent  society. 

The  Pension  price  at  a  German  summer  hotel  varies 
from  four  to  fifteen  marks,  according  to  the  general 
style  of  the  establishment  and  the  position  of  the  rooms 
engaged.  In  one  frequented  by  Germans  the  sitting- 
rooms  are  bare  and  formal,  and  as  English  visitors  are 
not  expected  no  English  papers  are  taken.  The  season 
begins  in  June  and  lasts  till  the  end  of  September,  and 
you  must  be  a  successful  hotel-keeper  yourself  to 
understand  how  so  much  can  be  provided  for  so  little, 
miles  away  from  any  market.  Many  of  these  summer 
hotels  have  been  built  high  up  in  the  forest,  and  with 


SUMMER  RESORTS  257 

no  others  near  them.  Some  are  run  as  a  speculation 
by  doctors.  There  is  hardly  a  woman  or  girl  in  Germany 
who  has  not  needed  a  Kur  at  some  time  of  her  life, 
or  who  does  not  need  one  every  year  if  she  has  money 
and  pretty  gowns.  The  Badereise  and  everything 
connected  with  it  serves  the  German  professional 
humorist  much  as  the  mother-in-law  and  the  drop 
too  much  serve  the  English  one,  perennially  and 
faithfully.  For  the  wife  is  determined  to  have  her 
Badereise,  and  the  husband  is  not  inclined  to  pay  for 
,it,  and  the  family  doctor  is  called  in  to  prescribe  it. 
The  artifices  and  complications  arising  suggest  them- 
selves, and  to  judge  by  the  postcards  and  farces  of 
Germany  never  weary  the  public  they  are  designed 
to  amuse. 

In  Berlin,  when  the  hot  weather  comes,  you  see  the 
family  luggage  and  bedding  going  off  to  the  sea-coast, 
for  people  who  take  a  house  take  part  of  their  bedding 
with  them.  There  is  so  little  seaside  and  so  much 
Berlin  that  prices  rule  high  wherever  there  is  civilised 
accommodation.  In  Ruegen  £\  a  week  per  room 
is  usual,  and  the  room  you  get  for  that  may  be  a  very 
poor  one.  In  most  German  watering-places,  both  on 
the  coast  and  in  the  forest,  you  can  have  furnished 
rooms  if  you  prefer  them  to  hotel  life,  but  as  a  rule 
you  must  either  cook  your  own  dinner  or  go  out  to 
a  hotel  for  it.  The  cooking  landlady  is  as  rare  in 
the  country  as  in  the  town.  Then  in  some  places,  at 
Oberhof,  for  instance,  high  upon  the  hills  above  Gotha, 
there  are  charming  little  furnished  bungalows.  Friends 
of  mine  go  there  or  to  one  of  the  neighbouring  villages 
every  year,  and  never  enter  a  hotel.  They  either  take  a 
servant  with  them,  or  find  someone  on  the  spot  to  do  what 
is  necessary.  When  there  are  no  mineral  waters  or  sea 
baths  to  give  a  place  importance,  Germans  say  they 


258  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

have  come  there  to  do  a  Luftkur.  A  delightful 
Frenchwoman  who  has  written  about  England  lately 
is  amused  by  our  everlasting  babble  about  a  "  change." 
This  one  needs  a  change,  she  says,  and  that  one  is  away 
for  a  change,  and  the  other  means  to  have  a  change 
next  week.  So  the  Germans  amuse  us  by  their  eternal 
"  cures."  One  tries  air,  and  the  other  water,  and  the 
next  iron,  and  the  fourth  sulphur,  while  the  number 
and  variety  of  nerve  cures,  Blutarmut  cures,  diet  cures, 
and  obesity  cures  are  bewildering.  It  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  life  in  a  hotel  can  cure  anyone  anywhere. 
However,  in  Germany,  if  you  are  under  a  capable 
Badearzt,  there  may  be  some  salvation  for  you,  since 
he  orders  your  baths,  measures  your  walks,  and  limits 
your  diet  so  strictly.  At  one  of  the  well-known  places 
where  people  who  eat  too  much  all  the  year  round  go 
to  reduce  their  figures,  there  is  in  the  chief  hotels  a 
table  known  as  the  Corpulententisch,  and  a  man  who 
sits  there  is  not  allowed  an  ounce  of  bread  beyond 
what  his  physician  has  prescribed. 

But  the  German  Luxusbad>  the  fashionable  watering- 
place  where  the  guests  are  cosmopolitan  and  the  prices 
high — Marienbad,  Homburg,  Karlsbad,  Schwalbach, 
Wiesbaden — all  these  places  are  as  well  known  to 
English  people  as  their  own  Bath  and  Buxton. 
Homburg  they  have  swallowed,  and  I  have  somewhere 
come  across  a  paragraph  from  an  English  newspaper 
objecting  to  the  presence  of  Germans  there.  It  is  the 
quiet  German  watering-place  where  no  English  come 
that  is  interesting  and  not  impossible  to  find.  During 
the  summer  I  spent  in  a  Bavarian  forest  village  I 
only  saw  one  English  person  the  whole  time,  except 
my  own  two  or  three  friends.  I  heard  the  other  day 
that  the  village  and  the  life  there  have  hardly  altered 
at  all,  but  that  some  English  people  have  discovered  the 


SUMMER  RESORTS  259 

trout  streams  and  come  every  year  for  fishing.  In  my 
time  no  one  seemed  to  care  about  fishing.  You  went 
for  walks  in  the  forest.  There  was  nothing  else  to  do, 
unless  you  played  Kegel  and  drank  beer;  for  it  was 
only  a  Luftkur.  There  was  no  Badearzt  and  no 
mineral  water.  To  be  sure,  there  were  caves,  huge 
limestone  caves  that  you  visited  with  a  guide  the  day 
after  you  arrived,  and  never  thought  about  again. 
There  were  various  ruined  castles,  too,  in  the  neighbour- 
hood that  made  a  goal  for  a  drive  in  cases  where  there 
was  a  restaurant  attached,  and  not  far  off  there  was  a 
curious  network  of  underground  beer-cellars  that  I  did 
not  see,  but  which  seemed  to  attract  the  men  of  our 
party  sometimes.  There  were  several  inns  in  the 
straggling  village,  for  the  place  lay  high  up  amongst 
the  dolomite  hills  of  Upper  Franconia,  and  people  came 
there  from  the  neighbouring  towns  for  Waldluft.  The 
summer  I  was  there  Richard  Wagner  passed  through 
with  his  family,  and  we  saw  him  more  than  once.  He 
stayed  at  the  Kurhaus,  a  hotel  of  more  pretentions  than 
the  village  inns,  for  it  had  a  good  sized  garden  and  did 
not  entertain  peasants.  My  inn,  recommended  by  an 
old  Nuremberg  friend,  was  owned  and  managed  by  a 
peasant  proprietor,  his  wife,  their  elderly  daughter,  and 
two  charming  orphan  grandchildren  in  their  early  teens. 
The  peasant  customers  had  as  usual  a  large  rough  room 
to  themselves,  the  town  guests  had  their  plain  bare 
Speisesaal,  and  we  Britishers  possessed  the  summer 
house  ;  so  we  were  all  happy.  The  whole  glory  of  the 
place  was  in  the  forest ;  for  it  was  not  flat  sandy  forest 
that  has  no  undergrowth,  and  wearies  you  very  soon 
with  its  sameness  and  its  still,  oppressive  air.  It  was 
up  hill  and  down  dale  forest,  full  of  lovely  glades, 
broken  by  massive  dolomite  rocks ;  the  trees  not  set  in 
serried  rows,  but  growing  for  the  most  part  as  the  birds 


260  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

and  the  wind  planted  them ;  a  varied  natural  forest 
tended  but  not  dragooned  by  man.  The  flowers  there 
were  a  delight  to  us,  for  we  arrived  early  enough  in  the 
year  to  find  lilies  of  the  valley  growing  in  great 
quantities  amongst  the  rocks,  while  a  little  later  the 
stream  and  pathways  were  bordered  by  oak  and  beech 
fern  and  by  many  wild  orchises  that  are  rare  now  with 
us.  It  was  not  here,  however,  but  in  another  German 
forest,  where,  one  day  when  I  had  no  time  to  linger,  I 
met  people  with  great  bunches  of  the  Cypripedium 
calceolus  that  they  had  gathered  as  we  gather  primroses. 
At  the  Bavarian  watering-place  we  had  the  whole  forest 
as  much  to  ourselves  as  the  summer  house,  for  no  one 
seemed  to  wander  farther  than  the  seats  placed  amongst 
the  trees  by  the  Verschonerungsverein. 

"Warum  willst  du  waiter  schweifen 
Sieh  das  Gute  liegt  so  nah," 

says  Goethe,  and  most  Germans  out  for  their  summer 
holiday  seem  to  take  his  advice  in  the  most  literal  way, 
and  find  their  happiness  as  near  home  as  they  possibly 
can. 

When  you  begin  to  think  about  the  actual  process  of 
travelling  in  Germany,  the  tiresome  business  of  getting 
from  the  city  to  the  forest  village,  for  instance,  you  at 
once  remember  both  the  many  complaints  you  have 
heard  Germans  make  of  our  system,  or  rather  want  of 
system,  and  the  bitter  scorn  poured  on  German  fussiness 
by  travelling  Britons.  The  ways  of  one  nation  are 
certainly  not  the  ways  of  another  in  this  respect. 
Directly  I  cross  the  German  frontier  I  know  that  I  am 
safe  from  muddle  and  mistakes,  that  I  need  not  look 
after  myself  or  my  luggage,  that  I  cannot  get  into  a 
wrong  train  or  alight  at  a  wrong  station,  or  suffer  any 
injury  through  carelessness  or  mismanagement.  Every- 


SUMMER  RESORTS  261 

thing  is  managed  for  me,  and  on  long  journeys  in  the 
corridor  trains  things  are  well  managed.  But  your 
carriage  is  far  more  likely  to  be  unpleasantly  crowded 
in  Germany  than  in  England;  and  as  hand-luggage 
is  not  charged  for,  the  public  takes  all  it  can,  and 
fills  the  racks,  the  seats,  and  the  floor  with  heavy 
bags  and  portmanteaux.  In  bygone  years  the  saying 
was  that  none  travelled  first  class  save  fools  and 
Englishmen,  but  nowadays  Germans  travel  in  their  own 
first-class  carriages  a  good  deal.  The  third-class 
accommodation  is  wretched,  more  fit  for  animals  than 
men.  In  some  districts  there  are  fourth-class  uncovered 
seats  on  the  roof  of  the  carriages,  but  I  have  only  seen 
these  used  in  summer.  When  I  was  last  in  Germany 
a  year  ago  there  was  much  excitement  and  indignation 
over  certain  changes  that  were  to  make  travelling  dearer 
for  everyone.  All  luggage  in  the  van  was  to  be  paid  for 
in  future,  first-class  fares  were  to  be  raised,  and  no 
return  tickets  issued. 

But  you  must  not  think  that  when  you  have  bought 
a  ticket  from  one  place  to  another  you  can  get  to  it  by 
any  train  you  please.  "  I  want  the  I  o.  I  5  to  Entepfuhl," 
you  say  to  the  nearest  and  biggest  official  you  can  see ; 
and  he  looks  at  your  ticket. 

"  Personenzug?  he  says  in  a  withering  way, — "  the 
10.15  is  an  express." 

You  say  humbly  that  you  like  an  express. 

"  Then  you  must  get  an  extra  ticket,"  he  says, 
"  This  one  only  admits  you  to  slow  trains." 

So  you  get  your  extra  ticket,  and  then  you  wait  with 
everyone  else  in  a  big  room  where  most  people  are 
eating  and  drinking  to  wile  away  the  time.  Don't 
imagine  that  you  can  find  your  empty  train,  choose 
your  corner,  and  settle  yourself  comfortably  for  your 
journey  as  you  can  in  England.  You  are  well  looked 


262  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

after,  but  if  you  are  used  to  England  you  never  quite 
lose  the  impression  in  Germany  that  if  you  are  not  an 
official  or  a  soldier  you  must  be  a  criminal,  and  that  if 
you  move  an  inch  to  right  or  left  of  what  is  prescribed 
you  will  hear  of  it.  Just  before  the  train  starts  the 
warders  open  your  prison  doors  and  shout  out  the  chief 
places  the  train  travels  to.  So  you  hustle  along  with 
everyone  else,  and  get  the  best  place  you  can,  and  are 
hauled  out  by  a  watchful  conductor  when  you  arrive. 
If  it  is  a  small  station  there  is  sure  to  be  a  dearth  of 
porters,  but  you  get  your  luggage  by  going  to  the 
proper  office  and  giving  up  the  slip  of  paper  you 
received  when  it  was  weighed.  Never  forget,  as  I  have 
known  English  people  do,  that  you  cannot  travel  in 
Germany  without  having  your  luggage  weighed  and 
receiving  the  Schein  for  it.  If  you  lose  the  Schein  you 
are  undone.  I  cannot  tell  you  exactly  what  would 
happen,  because  it  would  be  a  tragedy  without  precedent, 
but  it  is  impossible  that  German  officials  would 
surrender  a  trunk  without  receiving  a  Schein  in  ex- 
change ;  at  least,  not  without  months  of  rigmarole  and 
delay.  Even  when  it  is  the  official  who  blunders  the 
public  suffers  for  it.  We  were  travelling  some  years 
agdfrom  Leipzig  to  London  when  the  guard  examining 
our  tickets  let  one  blow  away.  Luckily  some  German 
gentlemen  in  the  carriage  with  us  saw  what  happened, 
gave  us  their  addresses,  and  offered  to  help  us  in  any 
way  they  could.  But  we  had  to  buy  a  fresh  ticket  and 
trust  to  getting  our  money  back  by  correspondence. 
Six  months  later  we  did  get  it  back,  and  this  is  an 
exact  translation  of  the  letter  accompanying  it : — 

"  In  answer  to  your  gracious  letter  of  the  26th 
September,  we  inform  your  wellbornship,  respectfully, 
that  the  Ticket  Office  here  is  directed,  in  regard  to  the 


SUMMER  RESORTS  263 

ticket  by  you  on  the  23rd  of  September  taken,  by  the 
guard  in  checking  lost  ticket  Leipzig-London  via 
Calais  2nd  class,  the  for  the  distance  Hanover  to  London 
outpaid  fare  of  7 1  m.  40  pf.  by  post  to  you  to  refund." 

One  must  admire  the  mind  that  can  compose  a 
sentence  like  that  without  either  losing  its  way  or 
turning  dizzy. 

But  if  you  want  to  see  what  Germans  can  give  you 
in  the  way  of  order  and  comfort  you  must  leave  the 
railroad  and  travel  in  one  of  their  big  American  liners. 
Even  if  you  are  not  going  to  America,  but  only  from 
Hamburg  to  Dover,  it  is  well  worth  doing.  The 
interest  of  it  begins  the  day  before,  when  you  take 
your  trunks  to  the  docks  and  see  the  steerage  pas- 
sengers assembled  for  their  start.  They  are  a  strange 
gipsy-looking  folk,  for  the  most  part  from  the  eastern 
frontier  of  Germany,  bare-footed  and  wearing  scraps 
of  brighter  colours  than  western  people  choose. 
When  we  arrived  the  doctor  was  examining  their  eyes 
in  an  open  shed,  and  we  saw  them  huddled  together 
in  families  waiting  their  turn.  There  was  no  weeping 
and  wailing  as  there  is  when  the  Irish  leave  their 
shores.  These  people  looked  scared  by  the  bustle 
of  departure,  and  concerned  for  the  little  children 
with  them,  and  for  their  poor  bundles  of  clothes; 
but  they  did  not  seem  unhappy.  In  the  luggage 
bureau  itself  you  came  across  the  emigrant  upsides 
with  fortune,  the  successful  business  German  return- 
ing to  America  after  a  summer  holiday  in  his  native 
land,  and  speaking  the  most  hideously  corrupt  and 
vulgar  English  ever  heard.  The  most  harsh  and 
nasal  American  is  heavenly  music  compared  with 
nasal  American  spoken  by  a  German  tongue.  The 
great  ship  was  crowded  with  people  of  this  type,  and 


264  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

the  resources  of  Europe  could  hardly  supply  them 
with  the  luxuries  they  wanted.  We  had  a  special 
train  next  day  to  Cuxhaven,  and  an  army  of  blue- 
coated  white-gloved  stewards  to  meet  us  on  the 
platform,  and  a  band  to  play  us  on  board.  Our 
private  rooms  were  hung  with  pale  blue  silk  and 
painted  with  white  enamel  and  furnished  with  satin- 
wood  ;  the  passages  had  marble  floors ;  there  were 
quantities  of  flowers  everywhere,  and  books,  and  the 
electric  light.  In  fact,  it  was  the  luxurious  floating 
hotel  a  modern  liner  must  be  to  entice  such  people 
as  those  I  saw  in  the  luggage  bureau  to  travel  in  it. 
The  meals  were  most  elaborate  and  excellent ;  and 
I  feel  sure  that  any  royal  family  happening  to  travel 
incognito  on  the  ship  would  have  been  satisfied  with 
them.  But  my  neighbours  at  table  were  not.  "We 
shall  not  dine  down  here  again,"  said  one  of  them, 
speaking  with  the  twang  I  have  described.  "  After 
to-night  we  shall  have  all  our  meals  in  the  Ritz 
Restaurant."  I  looked  at  her  reflectively,  and  next 
day  after  breakfast  I  stood  on  the  bridge  and  looked 
at  the  other  emigrants.  The  women  were  singing  an 
interminable  droning  mass,  the  men  sat  about  on  sacks 
and  played  cards,  the  bare-footed  children  scuttled 
to  and  fro. 

"  One  day  some  of  these  people  will  come  back  in 
a  Luxus  cabin,"  said  a  German  acquaintance  to  me. 

"  And  they  will  dine  in  the  Ritz  Restaurant,  because 
our  dinner  is  not  good  enough  for  them,"  I  prophesied. 

Directly  we  got  to  Dover  every  feature  of  our  arrival 
helped  us  to  feel  at  home.  There  was  a  batch  of 
large  good-natured  looking  policemen,  whose  function 
I  cannot  explain,  but  it  was  agreeable  to  see  them 
again.  There  was  no  order  or  organisation  of  any 
kind  to  protect  and  annoy  you.  The  authorities  had 


SUMMER  RESORTS  265 

thoughtfully  painted  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  on 
the  platform  where  the  luggage  was  deposited,  and 
you  were  supposed  to  find  your  own  trunks  in  front 
of  your  own  letter.  I,  full  of  German  ideas  still, 
waited  a  weary  time  near  my  letter.  "You'll  never 
get  them  that  way,"  said  an  English  friend.  "  You'd 
much  better  go  to  the  end  of  the  platform  and  pick 
them  out  as  you  can."  So  I  went,  and  found  a  huge 
pile  of  luggage  pitched  anyhow,  anywhere,  and  picked 
out  my  own,  seized  a  porter,  made  him  shoulder  things, 
and  followed  him  at  risk  to  life  and  limb.  All  the 
luggage  leaving  Dover  was  being  tumbled  about  at 
our  feet,  and  when  we  tried  to  escape  it  we  fell  over 
what  had  arrived.  Porters  were  rushing  to  and  fro 
with  trunks,  just  as  disturbed  ants  do  with  eggs,  but 
in  this  case  it  was  the  German  passengers  who  felt 
disturbed.  They  were  not  used  to  such  ways.  When 
they  had  to  duck  under  a  rope  to  reach  the  waiting 
train  they  grew  quite  angry,  and  said  they  did  not 
think  much  of  the  British  Empire.  But  there  was 
worse  to  come  for  us  all.  Breakfast  on  board  had 
been  early  and  a  fog  had  delayed  our  arrival.  We 
were  all  hungry  and  streamed  into  the  refreshment 
room.  We  filled  it. 

"  What  is  there  to  eat  ?  "  said  one. 

The  young  woman  with  the  hauteur  and  detach- 
ment of  her  calling  did  not  speak,  but  just  glanced 
at  a  glass  dish  under  a  glass  cover.  There  were  two 
stale  looking  ham  sandwiches. 

"  Well,"  says  my  Englishman,  when  I  tell  him  this 
true  story — "  we  are  not  a  greedy  nation." 

"  But  how  about  the  trunks  that  were  not  under 
their  right  letters  ?  "  I  ask. 

"  Who  in  his  senses  wants  to  find  trunks  under 
letters  ? "  says  he.  "  The  proper  place  for  trunks  is 


266  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

the  end  of  the  platform.  Then  you  can  tear  out  of 
the  train  and  find  yours  first  and  get  off  quickly. 
When  you  are  all  dragooned  and  drilled  an  ass  comes 
off  as  well  as  anyone  else.  You  place  a  premium  on 
stupidity." 

"  But  that  is  an  advantage  to  the  ass,"  I  say ;  "  and 
in  a  civilised  State  why  should  the  ass  not  have  as 
good  a  chance  as  anyone  else  ?  " 

The  argument  that  ensues  is  familiar,  exhausting, 
and  interminable.  "  An  ass  is  an  ass  wherever  he 
lives,"  says  someone  at  last ;  and  everyone  is  delighted 
to  have  a  proposition  put  forward  to  which  he  can 
honestly  agree. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 
PEASANT  LIFE 

THE  peasant  proprietors  of  Southern  Germany  are 
a  comfortable,  prosperous  class.  "  A  rich 
peasant "  begins  your  comic  story  as  often  as  "  a  rich 
Jew."  The  peasants  own  their  farms  and  a  bit  of 
forest,  as  well  as  a  vineyard  or  a  hop  garden.  They 
never  pretend  to  be  anything  but  peasants ;  but  when 
they  can  afford  it  they  like  to  have  a  son  who  is  a 
doctor,  a  schoolmaster,  or  a  pastor.  Unless  you  have 
special  opportunities  you  can  only  watch  peasant  life 
from  outside  in  Germany,  for  you  could  not  stay  in  a 
Bauernhaus  as  you  would  in  a  farmhouse  in  England. 
At  least,  you  could  not  live  with  the  family.  In  some 
of  the  summer  resorts  the  peasants  make  money  by 
furnishing  bedrooms  and  letting  them  to  Herrschaften^ 
but  the  Herrschaften  have  to  get  their  meals  at  the 
nearest  inn.  The  inner  life  of  the  peasant  family  is 
rougher  than  the  inner  life  of  the  farmer's  family  in 
England,  though  their  level  of  prosperity  is  as  high, 
possibly  higher.  You  cannot  imagine  the  English 
farmer  and  his  wife  putting  on  costly  and  picturesque 
mediaeval  costumes  every  Sunday  and  solemnly 
marching  to  church  in  them ;  but  the  German  Bauer 
still  does  this  quite  simply  and  proudly.  In  some 
parts  of  the  Black  Forest  every  valley  has  its  own 

costume,  so  that  you  know  where  a  man  lives  by  the 

267 


268  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

clothes  he  wears.  There  is  one  valley  where  all  the 
girls  are  pretty,  and  on  festive  occasions  or  for  church 
they  wear  charming  transparent  black  caps  with  wings 
to  them.  There  is  another  valley  where  the  men  are 
big-boned  and  blackavised,  with  square  shaven  chins 
and  spare  bodies,  rather  like  our  English  legal  type ; 
and  they  go  to  church  in  scarlet  breeches,  long  black 
velvet  coats,  and  black  three-cornered  hats.  Their 
women-folk  wear  gay-coloured  skirts  and  mushroom 
hats  loaded  with  heavy  poms-poms.  In  Cassel  there  are 
most  curious  costumes  to  be  seen  still  on  high  days 
and  holidays ;  from  Berlin,  people  go  to  the  Spreewald 
to  see  the  Wendish  peasants,  and  in  Bavaria  there  is 
still  some  colour  and  variety  of  costume.  But  every- 
where you  hear  that  these  costumes  are  dying  out. 
The  new  generation  does  not  care  to  label  itself,  for 
it  finds  stadtische  Kleider  cheaper  and  more  convenient. 
The  Wendish  girls  seem  to  abide  by  the  ways  of 
their  forefathers,  for  they  go  to  service  in  Berlin  on 
purpose  to  save  money  for  clothes.  They  buy  or  are 
presented  with  two  or  three  costumes  each  year,  and 
when  they  marry  they  have  a  stock  that  will  last  a 
lifetime  and  will  provide  them  with  the  variety  their 
pride  demands.  For  they  like  to  have  a  special  rig-out 
for  every  occasion,  and  a  great  many  changes  for 
church  on  Sundays.  In  Catholic  Germany  a  procession 
on  a  saint's  day  seems  to  have  stepped  down  from  a 
stained-glass  window,  the  women's  gowns  are  so  vivid 
and  their  bodies  so  stiff  and  angular.  But  to  see  the 
German  peasantry  in  full  dress  you  must  go  to  a 
Kirchweih,  a  dance,  or  a  wedding. 

You  can  hardly  be  in  Germany  in  summer  without 
seeing  something  of  peasants'  weddings,  and  of  the 
elaborate  rites  observed  at  them.  Different  parts  of  the 
empire  have  different  ways,  and  even  in  one  district  you 


PEASANT  LIFE  269 

will  find  much  variety.  We  saw  several  peasant 
weddings  in  the  Black  Forest  one  summer,  and  no  two 
were  quite  alike.  Sometimes  when  we  were  walking 
through  the  forest  we  met  a  Brautwagen :  the  great 
open  cart  loaded  with  the  furniture  and  wedding 
presents  the  bride  was  taking  as  part  of  her  dowry  to 
her  new  home.  It  would  be  piled  with  bedding, 
wooden  bedsteads,  chests  of  drawers,  and  pots  and  pans  ; 
and  gay-coloured  ribbons  would  be  floating  from  each 
point  of  vantage.  Sometimes  the  bridal  pair  was 
with  the  cart,  the  young  husband  in  his  wedding 
clothes  walking  beside  the  horse,  the  bride  seated 
amongst  her  possessions.  Sometimes  a  couple  of  men 
in  working  clothes,  probably  the  bridegroom  and  a 
friend,  were  carrying  the  things  beforehand,  so  that  the 
new  home  should  be  ready  directly  after  the  wedding. 
We  happened  to  be  staying  in  the  Black  Forest  when 
our  inn-keeper's  daughter  was  going  to  marry  a  young 
doctor,  the  son  of  a  rich  peasant  in  a  neighbouring 
valley,  and  we  were  asked  to  the  wedding.  Our 
landlord  ran  two  inns,  the  one  in  which  we  stayed  and 
another  a  dozen  miles  away,  which  was  managed  by 
his  wife  and  daughters.  The  wife's  hotel  was  in  a 
fashionable  watering-place,  and  offered  a  smarter 
background  for  a  wedding  than  the  one  in  our  out-of- 
the-world  little  town.  It  is  the  proper  moment  now 
for  you  to  object  that  this  could  not  have  been  a 
"peasant"  wedding  at  all,  and  has  no  place  in  a 
picture  of  peasant  life ;  and  I  concede  that  the  bride 
and  bridegroom,  their  parents,  and  certain  of  their 
friends  all  wore  stadtische  Kleider.  The  bride  was 
in  black  silk,  and  the  bridegroom  in  his  professional 
black  coat.  But  nearly  all  the  guests  were  peasants, 
and  wore  peasant  costume;  and  the  heavy  long- 
spun festivities  were  those  usual  at  a  peasant's 


270  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

wedding.  We  started  with  our  bicycles  at  six  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  and  soon  found  ourselves  in  a  straggling 
procession  of  carts  and  pedestrians  come  from  all  the 
valleys  round.  The  main  road  was  like  a  road  on  a 
fair  day.  Everyone  knew  that  there  was  to  be  a 
Hochzeit  at  R.,  a  big  splendid  Hochzeit,  and  everyone  who 
could  afford  the  time  and  the  money  was  going  to  eat 
and  drink  and  dance  at  it.  Everyone  was  in  a  holiday 
mood,  and  all  along  the  lovely  forest  road  we  exchanged 
greetings  with  our  fellow-guests  and  gathered  scraps  of 
information  about  the  feast  we  were  on  our  way  to 
join.  Every  inn  we  passed  had  set  out  extra  tables, 
and  expected  extra  custom  that  day,  and  when  we  got 
to  one  within  a  mile  of  R.  we  found  the  garden 
crowded.  People  were  ready  by  this  time  for  their 
second  breakfast,  and  were  having  it  here  before 
making  their  appearance  at  the  wedding.  We  were 
hungry  and  thirsty  ourselves,  so  we  sat  down  under 
the  shade  of  trees  and  ate  belegtes  Butterbrod  and 
drank  Pilsener  as  our  neighbours  did.  We  arrived  at 
R.  just  in  time  to  remove  the  dust  of  the  road,  and 
then  walk,  as  we  found  our  hosts  expected  us  to  do,  in 
the  wedding  procession.  First  came  the  bride  and 
bridegroom,  and  then  a  long  crocodile  of  brides- 
maids, all  wearing  the  curious  high  bead  wreaths 
possessed  by  every  village  girl  of  standing  in  this  part 
of  Germany.  We  witnessed  the  civil  ceremony,  but 
though  I  have  been  present  at  several  German  civil 
weddings  I  remember  as  little  about  them  as  about  a 
visit  to  the  English  District  Council  Office  where  I 
have  sometimes  been  to  pay  taxes.  In  both  cases 
there  is  a  bare  room,  an  indifferent  official,  some 
production  of  official  papers,  and  the  thing  is  done. 
When  the  bride  and  bridegroom  had  been  made 
legally  man  and  wife  they  headed  the  waiting  proces- 


PEASANT  LIFE  271 

sion  again,  and  proceeded  to  the  church  for  the  real, 
the  religious  ceremony.  It  was  packed  with  people, 
and  the  service,  which  was  Catholic,  lasted  a  long  time. 
When  it  was  over  everyone  streamed  back  to  the  hotel, 
and  as  soon  as  possible  the  Hochzeitsmahl  began  ; 
but  though  we  were  politely  bidden  to  it  we  politely 
excused  ourselves,  for  we  knew  that  the  feast  would 
last  for  hours  and  would  be  more  than  we  could  bear. 
Till  evening,  they  said,  it  would  last,  and  there  would 
be  many  speeches,  and  it  was  a  broiling  summer  day. 
The  guests  we  perceived  to  be  a  mixed  company  of 
peasants  in  costume,  of  inn-keepers  and  their  families 
in  ordinary  clothes,  and  of  university  students  in  black 
coats  who  were  removed  from  the  peasantry  by  their 
education,  but  not  by  birth  and  affection.  The  invited 
guests  sat  down  to  dinner  in  the  Speisesaal,  but  the 
hotel  garden  was  crowded  with  country  people  who 
paid  for  what  they  consumed.  The  dinner  served  to 
us  and  to  others  out  here  was  an  unusually  good  one, 
so  we  discovered  that  people  who  attend  a  wedding 
unasked  get  a  spectacle,  a  dance,  and  extra  fine  food 
for  their  money.  Towards  the  end  of  the  afternoon 
before  we  left  R.  we  looked  in  at  the  ballroom,  where 
dancing  had  begun  already. 

At  another  peasant's  wedding  in  the  Black  Forest 
we  saw  some  quaint  customs  observed  that  were  omitted 
at  R.  In  this  case  the  bride  and  bridegroom  were 
themselves  peasants,  and  wore  the  costume  of  their 
valley.  The  bride  was  said  to  be  well  endowed,  but 
she  was  extremely  plain.  Amongst  German  peasants, 
however,  beauty  hardly  counts.  What  a  woman  is 
worth  to  a  man,  he  reckons  partly  in  hard  cash  and 
partly  in  the  work  she  can  do.  There  were  two 
charmingly  pretty  girls  in  the  Bavarian  village  where 
we  once  spent  a  summer,  but  we  were  told  that  they 


272  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

had  not  the  faintest  chance  of  marriage,  because, 
though  they  belonged  to  a  respectable  family,  they 
were  orphans  and  dowerless.  Auerbach's  enchanting 
story  of  Barfiissele^  in  which  the  village  Cinderella 
marries  the  rich  peasant,  is  a  fairy  story  and  not  a 
picture  of  real  life.  The  feast  at  this  second  wedding 
we  saw  must  have  cost  a  good  deal,  for  it  was  prepared 
at  our  hotel  for  a  large  crowd  of  guests  and  lasted  for 
hours.  It  was  an  agitating  wedding  in  some  of  its 
aspects.  The  day  before  we  had  been  startled  at 
irregular  but  frequent  intervals  by  loud  gunshots,  and 
we  were  told  that  these  were  fired  in  welcome  of  the 
wedding  guests  as  they  arrived.  When  the  bride 
appeared  with  her  Brautwagen  and  an  escort  of  young 
men  there  was  a  volley  in  her  honour.  We  did  not 
go  to  church  to  see  that  wedding,  as  we  were  not 
attracted  by  the  bridal  pair ;  but  we  watched  the  crowd 
from  our  windows,  and  as  it  was  a  wet  day,  endured 
the  sounds  of  revelry  that  lasted  for  hours  after  the 
feast  began.  There  was  no  dancing  at  this  marriage, 
and  as  each  batch  of  guests  departed  a  brass  band  just 
outside  our  rooms  played  them  a  send-off.  It  was  a 
jerky  irritating  performance,  because  the  instant  the 
object  of  their  attentions  disappeared  round  the  turn 
of  the  hill  they  stopped  short,  and  only  began  a  new 
tune  when  there  was  a  new  departure.  We  were  rather 
glad  when  the  day  came  to  an  end.  In  the  Black 
Forest  you  always  know  where  there  is  a  wedding, 
because  two  small  fir  trees  are  brought  from  the  forest 
decked  with  flying  coloured  streamers  of  paper  or  ribbon, 
and  set  on  either  side  of  the  bride's  front  door. 

The  German  peasant  loves  his  pipe  and  his  beer,  and 
on  a  Sunday  afternoon  his  game  of  Kegel\  but  on  high 
days  and  holidays  he  likes  to  be  dancing.  He  and  she 
will  trudge  for  miles  to  dance  at  some  distant  village 


PEASANT  LIFE  273 

inn.  You  meet  them  dressed  in  their  best  clothes, 
walking  barefoot  and  carrying  clean  boots  and 
stockings.  How  they  can  dance  in  tight  boots  after  a 
long  hot  walk  on  a  dusty  road,  you  must  be  a  German 
peasant  yourself  to  understand.  The  dance  I  remember 
best  took  place  in  a  barn  belonging  to  a  village  inn  in 
Bavaria.  I  went  with  several  English  friends  to  look 
on  at  it,  and  the  men  of  our  party  danced  with  some 
of  the  village  girls.  The  room  was  only  lighted  by  a 
few  candles,  and  it  was  so  crowded  that  while  everyone 
was  dancing  everyone  was  hustled.  But  we  were  told 
that  anyone  who  chose  could  "  buy  the  floor  "  for  a  time 
by  giving  sixpence  or  a  shilling  to  the  band.  Two  of 
the  Englishmen  did  this,  and  the  crowd  looked  on  in 
solemn  approval  while  they  waltzed  once  or  twice  round 
with  the  pretty  granddaughters  of  our  hosts.  It  was  a 
scene  I  have  often  wished  I  could  paint,  the  crowd  was 
so  dense,  and  the  faces,  from  our  point  of  view,  so 
foreign.  The  candles  only  lifted  the  semi-darkness 
here  and  there,  but  where  their  light  fell  it  flashed  on 
the  bright-coloured  handkerchiefs  which  the  women  of 
this  village  twisted  round  their  heads  like  turbans,  and 
pinned  across  their  bosoms.  I  think  it  is  absurd,  though, 
to  say  that  German  peasants  dance  well.  They  enjoy 
the  exercise  immensely,  but  are  heavy  and  loutish  in 
their  movements,  and  they  flounder  about  in  a  grotesque 
way  with  their  hands  on  each  other's  shoulders.  At  a 
Kirchweih  they  dance  in  the  open  air. 

A  Kirchweih  is  a  feast  to  celebrate  the  foundations 
of  the  village  church,  and  it  takes  the  form  of  a  fair. 
The  preparations  begin  the  day  before,  when  the  round- 
abouts and  shooting  booths  are  put  up  in  the  appointed 
field.  On  the  day  before  the  Kirchweih  in  our  Bavarian 
village  I  found  the  inn-keeper's  wife  cooking  what  we 
call  Berlin  pancakes  in  a  cauldron  of  boiling  fat,  the 
18 


274  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

like  of  which  I  have  never  seen  before  or  since  for  size. 
It  must  have  held  gallons.  All  day  long  she  stood 
there  throwing  in  the  cinnamon  flavoured  batter,  and 
taking  out  the  little  crisp  brown  balls.  They  are,  it 
seems,  a  favourite  dainty  at  a  Bavarian  Kirchweih,  and 
must  be  provided  in  large  quantities.  On  the  fair  field 
itself  the  food  offered  by  the  stall-keepers  seemed  to 
be  chiefly  enormous  slabs  of  shiny  gingerbread  made 
in  fanciful  shapes,  such  as  hearts,  lyres,  and  garlands, 
cheap  sweetmeats,  and  the  small  boiled  sausages  the 
artless  German  eats  in  public  without  a  knife  and  fork. 
The  Kirchweih  is  the  chief  event  of  the  summer  in 
a  German  village,  and  is  talked  of  for  weeks  before- 
hand. The  peasants  stream  in  from  all  the  villages 
near,  and  join  in  the  dancing  and  the  shooting  matches. 
When  the  day  is  fine  and  the  fair  field  has  a  background 
of  wooded  hills,  you  see  where  the  librettists  of  pre- 
Wagnerian  days  went  for  their  stage  effects.  All  the 
characters  of  many  a  German  opera  are  there  correctly 
dressed,  joining  in  the  songs  and  dances,  shooting  for 
wagers,  making  love,  sometimes  coming  to  blows.  But 
you  may  look  on  at  a  Kirchweih  from  morning  till 
night  without  seeing  either  horseplay  or  drunkenness. 
Not  that  the  German  peasant  is  an  opera  hero  in  his 
inner  life.  He  is  a  hard-working  man,  God-fearing  on 
the  whole,  stupid  and  stolid  often,  narrowly  shrewd 
often,  having  his  eye  on  the  main  chance.  When  he 
is  stupid  but  not  God-fearing  he  dresses  himself  and 
his  wife  in  their  best  clothes,  puts  his  insurance  papers 
in  his  pockets,  sets  his  thatched  house  on  fire,  and  goes 
for  a  walk.  Then  he  is  surprised  that  he  is  caught 
and  punished.  Fires  are  frequent  in  German  villages, 
and  in  a  high  wind  and  where  the  roofs  are  of  straw 
destruction  is  complete  sometimes.  You  often  come 
across  the  blackened  remains  of  houses,  and  you  always 


PEASANT  LIFE  275 

feel  anxious  about  the  new  buildings  that  will  replace 
them.  It  is  a  good  deal  to  say,  but  I  believe  our  own 
jerry-builders  are  outdone  in  florid  vulgarity  by  German 
villadom,  and  the  German  atrocities  will  last  longer  than 
ours,  because  the  building  laws  are  more  stringent. 
But  the  old  Bauernhaus  still  to  be  seen  in  most  parts 
of  the  Black  Forest  is  dignified  and  beautiful.  The 
Swiss  chalet  is  a  poor  gim-crack  thing  in  comparison. 
Sometimes  the  German  house  has  a  shingled  roof,  and 
sometimes  a  thatched  roof  dark  with  age,  and  it  has 
drooping  eaves  and  an  outside  staircase  and  balcony 
of  wood.  It  shelters  the  farm  cattle  in  the  stables  on 
the  ground  floor,  and  the  family  on  the  upper  floor,  and 
in  the  roof  there  are  granaries.  But  the  beautiful  old 
thatched  roofs  are  gradually  giving  place  to  the  slate 
ones,  because  they  burn  so  easily,  and  fire,  when  it 
comes,  is  the  village  tragedy.  I  can  remember  when 
a  fire  in  a  big  German  commercial  town  was  proclaimed 
by  a  beating  drum,  the  noisy  parade  of  fire-men,  the 
clanging  of  bells,  and  all  the  hullaballoo  that  panic  and 
curiosity  could  make.  But  last  year,  in  Berlin,  looking 
at  houses  like  the  tower  of  Babel,  I  said  something  of 
fire,  and  was  told  that  no  one  felt  nervous  nowadays, 
the  arrangements  for  dealing  with  it  were  so  complete. 

"  People  just  look  out  of  the  window,  see  that  there 
is  a  fire  next  door,  or  above  or  beneath  them,  and  go 
about  their  business,"  said  my  hosts.  "  They  know 
that  the  fire  brigade  will  do  their  business  and  put 
it  out." 

I  did  not  see  a  fire  in  Berlin,  so  I  had  no  opportunity 
of  witnessing  the  remarkable  coolness  of  the  Berliner  in 
circumstances  the  ordinary  man  finds  trying ;  but  I  saw 
a  fire  in  my  Bavarian  village,  and  there  were  not  many 
cool  people  there.  The  summons  came  in  the  middle 
of  the  night  with  the  hoarse  insistent  clanging  of  the 


2/6  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

church  bell,  the  sudden  start  into  life  of  the  sleeping 
village,  the  sounds  in  the  house  and  in  the  street  of 
people  astir  and  terrified.  Then  there  came  the 
brilliant  reflection  of  the  flames  in  the  opposite  windows, 
and  the  roar  and  crackle  of  fire  no  one  at  first  knew 
where.  It  was  only  a  barn  after  all,  a  barn  luckily 
detached  from  other  buildings.  Yet  when  we  got  into 
the  street  we  found  most  of  the  population  removing 
its  treasures,  as  if  danger  was  imminent  All  the  beds 
and  chairs  and  pots  and  pans  of  the  place  seemed  to 
be  on  the  cobble-stones,  and  the  women  wailed  and  the 
children  wept.  "  But  the  village  is  not  on  fire,"  we  said. 
"  It  may  be  at  any  moment,"  they  assured  us,  and  were 
scandalised  by  our  cold-bloodedness.  For  we  had  not 
carted  our  trunks  into  the  street,  but  hastened  towards 
the  burning  barn  to  see  if  we  could  help  the  men  and 
boys  carrying  water.  The  weather  was  still  and  the 
barn  isolated,  so  we  knew  there  was  no  danger  of  the 
fire  spreading.  But  the  villagers  were  too  excitable 
and  too  panic-stricken  to  be  convinced  of  this.  All 
their  lives  they  had  dreaded  fire,  and  when  the  flames 
broke  out  so  near  them  they  thought  that  their  houses 
were  doomed. 

Next  to  fire  the  German  peasant  hates  beggars  and 
gipsies.  We  were  six  months  in  the  Black  Forest  and 
only  met  one  beggar  the  whole  time,  and  he  was  a 
decent-looking  old  man  who  seemed  to  ask  alms 
unwillingly.  But  in  some  parts  of  Germany  there  are 
a  great  many  most  unpleasant-looking  tramps.  The 
village  council  puts  up  a  notice  that  forbids  begging, 
and  has  a  general  fund  from  which  it  sends  tramps  on 
their  way.  But  it  does  not  seem  able  to  deal  with  the 
caravans  of  gipsies  that  come  from  Hungary  and 
Bohemia.  In  a  Thuringian  village  we  came  down  one 
morning  to  find  our  inn  locked  and  barricaded  as  if  a  riot 


PEASANT  LIFE  277 

was  expected,  and  an  attack.  Even  the  shutters  were 
drawn  and  bolted.  "  Was  ist  denn  los  ? "  we  asked  in 
amazment,  and  were  told  that  the  gipsies  were  coming. 

"  But  will  they  do  you  any  harm  ?  "  we  asked. 

"  They  will  steal  all  they  can  lay  hands  on,"  our 
landlady  assured  us.  She  was  a  widow,  and  her 
brewer,  the  only  man  in  her  employ,  was,  we  supposed, 
standing  guard  over  his  own  house.  We  thought  the 
panic  seemed  extreme,  but  we  had  never  encountered 
Hungarian  gipsies  on  the  warpath,  and  we  did  not  know 
'how  many  were  coming.  So,  after  assuring  our  excited 
little  Frau  that  we  would  stand  by  her  as  well  as  we 
could,  we  went  to  an  upper  window  to  watch  for  the 
enemy.  Presently  the  procession  began,  a  straggling 
procession  of  the  dirtiest,  meanest-looking  ruffians  ever 
seen.  There  was  waggon  after  waggon,  swarming  with 
ragamuffins  of  both  sexes  and  all  ages.  The  men 
were  mostly  on  foot,  casting  furtive  glances  to 
right  and  left,  evident  snappers-up  of  unconsidered 
trifles,  truculent,  ragged,  wearing  evil-looking  knives 
by  their  sides.  During  their  transit  the  village 
had  shut  itself  up,  as  Coventry  did  for  Godiva's 
ride.  When  we  all  ventured  forth  again  the  talk 
was  of  missing  poultry  and  rifled  fruit  trees.  The  geese 
had  luckily  started  for  their  day  on  the  high  pastures 
before  the  bad  folk  came ;  for  in  a  German  village 
there  is  always  a  gooseherd.  Sometimes  it  is  a  little 
boy  or  girl,  sometimes  an  old  woman,  and  early  in  the 
morning  whoever  has  the  post  collects  the  whole  flock, 
drives  it  to  a  chosen  feeding  ground,  spends  the  day 
there,  and  brings  it  back  at  night.  It  must  be  a  con- 
templative life,  and  in  dry  weather  pleasant.  I  think 
it  would  suit  a  philosopher  if  he  could  choose  his  days. 
In  our  Franconian  village  the  gooseherd  was  a  little 
boy,  vastly  proud  of  his  job.  Every  morning,  long 


278  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

before  we  were  up,  he  would  stride  past  our  windows 
piping  the  same  tune,  and  at  the  sound  of  it  every 
goose  in  the  village  would  waddle  out  from  her  night 
quarters  and  join  the  cackling  fussy  crowd  at  his  heels. 
Every  evening  as  dusk  fell  he  came  back  again,  still 
piping  the  same  tune,  and  then  the  geese  would  detach 
themselves  in  little  groups  from  the  main  body  and 
find  their  own  homes  as  surely  as  cows  do. 

Every  rural  district  of  Germany  has  its  own  novelist. 
Fritz  Reuter,  Frensson,  Rosegger,  Sudermann  all  write 
of  country  life  in  the  places  they  know  best.  In 
Hauptmann's  beautiful  plays  you  see  the  peasant 
through  a  veil  of  poetry  and  mysticism.  Auerbach,  I 
am  told,  is  out  of  fashion.  His  stories  end  well 
mostly,  his  construction  one  must  admit  is  childish,  and 
his  characters  change  their  natures  with  the  suddenness 
of  a  thunderbolt  to  suit  his  plot.  Yet  when  I  have 
Sehnsucht  for  Germany,  and  cannot  go  there  in  reality, 
I  love  to  go  in  fancy  where  Auerbach  leads.  He  takes 
you  to  a  house  in  the  Black  Forest,  and  you  sit  at  break- 
fast with  the  family  eating  Haferbrei  out  of  one  bowl. 
You  know  the  people  gathered  there  as  well  as  if  you 
had  been  with  them  all  the  summer,  and  you  know  them 
now  in  winter  time  when  the  roads  are  deep  in  snow  and 
a  wolf  is  abroad  in  the  forest.  The  story  I  am  thinking 
of  was  published  in  1860,  and  I  believe  that  there  are 
no  wolves  now  in  the  Black  Forest.  But  as  far  as  one 
outside  peasant  life  can  judge,  I  doubt  whether  any- 
thing else  has  changed  much.  You  hear  the  history 
of  the  Grossbauer,  the  rich  farmer  of  the  district  whose 
breed  is  as  strong  and  daring  as  the  breed  of  the 
Volsungs.  Seven  years  ago  the  only  son  and  heir  of 
this  forest  magnate,  Adam  Rottman,  loved  a  poor 
girl  called  Martina,  and  their  child  Joseph  is  now  six 
years  old.  Adam  is  still  faithful  to  Martina,  but  his 


PEASANT  LIFE  279 

parents  will  not  consent  to  their  marriage,  and  insists 
on  betrothing  him  to  an  heiress  as  rich  as  he  will  be, 
Heidenmiiller's  Toni.  The  whole  village  looks  on  at 
the  romance  and  sides  with  Martina;  for  Adam's 
mother,  die  wilde  Rottmdnnin^  is  one  of  those  stormy 
viragoes  I  myself  have  met  amongst  German  women. 
She  masters  her  husband  and  son  with  her  temper. 
She  is  so  rich  that  she  has  more  Schmalz  than  she  can 
use,  and  so  mean  that  she  would  rather  let  it  go  bad 
than  give  it  to  the  poor.  At  midnight,  when  the  roads 
are  deep  in  snow,  she  sends  for  the  Pfarrer,  and  when 
he  risks  his  life  and  goes  because  he  thinks  she  is 
dying,  he  finds  she  is  merely  bored  and  wanted  his 
company ;  for  she  has  been  used  to  think  that  she 
could  tyrannise  over  all  men  because  she  was  richer 
and  more  determined  than  most.  Next  day  she  gets 
up,  orders  her  husband  and  son  to  put  on  Sunday 
clothes,  and  well  wrapped  up  in  Betten  drives  with  them 
to  the  Heidenmiihle^  where  Adam  is  formally  betrothed 
to  Toni.  The  girl  knows  all  about  Martina,  but  she 
consents  because  she  would  marry  anyone  to  escape 
from  her  stepmother,  who  treats  her  cruelly,  and  in 
order  to  hurt  her  feelings  has  given  her  mother's  cup  to 
the  Knecht.  After  the  betrothal  the  two  fathers  sit 
together  and  drink  hot  spiced  wine,  the  two  mothers 
gossip  together,  and  the  Brautpaar  talk  sadly  about 
Martina,  who  should  be  Adam's  wife,  and  Joseph  who 
is  his  child.  At  last  Adam  could  bear  it  no  longer. 
He  would  go  straight  to  Martina,  he  said,  and  he 
would  be  with  Toni  again  before  the  Christmas  tree 
was  lighted ;  and  then  he  would  either  break  with 
Toni  or  feel  free  to  marry  her.  "  The  bride  stared  at 
Adam  with  amazement  as  he  put  on  his  grey  cloak 
and  his  fur  cap  and  seized  his  pointed  stick.  He 
looked  both  handsome  and  terrible."  For  he  is  one 


28o  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

of  the  heroes  Germans  love,  a  giant  who  once  held  a 
bull  by  its  horns  while  Martina  escaped  from  it,  who 
is  called  the  Gaul,  because  for  a  wager  he  once  carried 
the  cart  and  the  load  a  cart  horse  should  have  carried, 
and  who  on  this  wild  winter  night  meets  the  wolf  in 
the  forest  and  kills  it  with  his  stick.  So  you  see  him 
striding  through  the  snow-bound  forest  to  the  village 
where  Martina  lives,  dragging  the  wolf  after  him,  as 
strong  as  Siegfried,  as  credulous  as  a  child,  ready  to 
believe  that  the  voices  of  his  father  and  his  child  both 
looking  for  him  in  the  snow  are  witches'  voices.  But 
when  he  gets  to  the  village  he  finds  that  his  child,  so 
long  disowned  and  disregarded,  is  really  lost,  and  is 
looking  for  him  in  the  snow.  The  hatter  who  tramps 
from  village  to  village  hung  with  hats  met  him,  and 
tried  to  turn  him  back.  But  the  child  said  he  had 
come  out  to  find  his  father,  and  must  go  on.  Then 
every  man  in  the  village  assembles  at  the  Pfarrhaus^ 
and,  led  by  the  PfarreSs  brother-in-law  (an  eventual 
husband  for  Heidenmtiller's  Toni),  sets  out  to  find 
Joseph  in  the  snow.  Before  they  start  Adam  vows 
before  the  whole  community  that  whether  the  child  is 
alive  or  dead  nothing  shall  ever  part  him  again  from 
Martina,  and  when  he  has  made  this  vow  you  see  the 
whole  company  depart  in  various  directions  carrying 
torches,  ladders,  axes,  and  long  ropes.  Meanwhile  the 
child,  after  some  alarms  and  excursions,  meets  three 
angels  (children  masquerading),  who  take  him  with 
them  to  the  mill  where  Toni  has  just  lighted  the 
Christmas  tree.  She  rescues  Joseph  from  die  wilde 
Rdttmdnnin,  and  that  same  night,  her  father  dying  of 
his  carouse,  she  becomes  a  rich  heiress  and  free  of 
her  wicked  stepmother.  Joseph's  hostile  grandfathers, 
after  a  fight  in  the  snow,  make  friends,  the  obliging 
Pfarrer  marries  Adam  and  Martina  at  midnight,  and 


PEASANT  LIFE  281 

soon  after  the  wilde  Rottmdnnin  who  will  not  be 
reconciled  leaves  this  world.  So  everyone  who  deserves 
happiness  gets  it.  But  though  you  only  half  believe 
in  the  story  you  have  been  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
Black  Forest,  the  companion  of  its  people,  the  observer 
of  their  most  intimate  talk  and  ways.  You  have 
heard  the  women  gossip  at  the  well,  you  have  made 
friends  with  Leegart  the  seamstress,  who  believes  that 
quite  against  her  will  she  is  gifted  with  supernatural 
powers.  There  is  Haspele,  too,  who  made  Joseph  his 
new  boots,  and  would  marry  Martina  if  he  could ;  and 
there  is  David,  the  father  of  Martina,  who  was  hardly 
kept  from  murdering  his  daughter  when  she  came  home 
in  disgrace,  and  whose  grandson  becomes  the  apple  of 
his  eye.  The  whole  picture  of  these  people  is  vivid 
and  enchanting,  touched  with  quaint  detail,  veined  with 
the  tragedy  of  their  lives,  glowing  with  the  warm 
human  qualities  that  knit  them  to  each  other.  The 
South  German  loves  to  tell  you  that  his  country  is 
ein  gesegnetes  Land>  a  blessed  country,  flowing  with 
milk  and  honey;  and  whether  you  are  reading 
Auerbach's  peasant  stories  or  actually  staying  amongst 
his  peasant  folk,  you  get  this  impression  of  their 
natural  surroundings.  Nature  is  kind  here,  grows 
forest  for  her  people  on  the  hill-tops,  and  wine,  fruit  and 
corn  in  her  sheltered  valleys,  ripens  their  fruit  in  summer, 
gives  them  heavy  crops  of  hay,  and  sends  soft  warm 
rain  as  well  as  sun  to  enrich  their  pastures. 

In  the  eastern  provinces  of  Germany  the  conditions 
of  life  amongst  the  poor  are  most  unhappy.  Here  the 
land  belongs  to  large  proprietors,  and  until  modern 
times  the  people  born  on  the  land  belonged  to  the 
landlords  too.  No  man  could  leave  the  village  where 
he  was  born  without  permission,  and  he  had  to  work 
for  his  masters  without  pay.  Even  in  the  memory  of 


282  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

living  men  the  whip  was  quite  commonly  used.  In 
her  most  interesting  account  of  a  Silesian  village,1 
Gertrud  Dyhrenfurth  says  that  the  present  condition 
of  the  peasantry  in  this  region  compares  favourably 
with  former  times,  but  she  admits  that  they  are  still 
miserably  overworked  and  underpaid.  They  are  no 
longer  legally  obliged  to  submit  to  corporal  punishment, 
nor  can  they  be  forced  to  live  where  they  were  born, 
and  as  they  emigrate  in  large  numbers,  scarcity  of  labour 
has  brought  about  slightly  improved  conditions  for 
those  remaining.  But  a  man's  wage  is  still  a  mark  a 
day  in  summer  and  90  pf.  in  winter.  A  woman 
earns  60  pf.  in  summer  and  50  pf.  in  winter.  Besides 
receiving  these  wages,  a  family  regularly  employed 
lives  rent  free  and  gets  a  fixed  amount  of  coal,  and  at 
harvest  time  some  corn  and  brandy.  You  cannot  say 
the  family  has  a  house  or  cottage  to  itself,  because  the 
system  is  to  build  long  bare-looking  barracks  in  which 
numbers  of  working  families  herd  like  rabbits  in  a 
warren.  In  modern  times  each  family  has  a  kitchen 
to  itself,  so  there  is  one  warm  room  where  the  small 
children  can  be  kept  alive.  In  former  times  there  was 
a  general  kitchen,  and  in  the  rooms  appointed  to  each 
family  no  heating  apparatus ;  therefore,  if  the  children 
were  not  to  die  of  cold,  they  had  to  be  carried  every 
morning  to  the  kitchen,  where  there  was  a  fire.  The 
present  plan  has  grave  disadvantages,  as  in  one  room  the 
whole  family  has  to  sleep,  eat,  wash,  and  cook  for  them- 
selves and  for  the  animals  in  their  care.  The  furniture 
consists  of  two  or  three  bedsteads  with  straw  mattresses 
and  feather  plumeaux,  shelves  for  pots  and  pans,  a 
china  cupboard  with  glass  doors,  a  table  in  the  window, 
and  wooden  benches  with  backs.  This  installation  is 

1  Ein  schlesischts  Dorfund  Rittcrgut,  von  Gertrud  Dyhrenfurth.    Leipzig, 
Duncker  und  Humblot. 


PEASANT  LIFE  283 

quite  luxurious  compared  with  that  of  a  milkmaid's  or 
a  stablemaid's  surroundings  sixty  or  seventy  years  ago. 
"  Her  home  consisted  of  a  plank  slung  from  the  stable 
roof  and  furnished  with  a  sack  of  straw  and  a  plumeau. 
Her  small  belongings  were  in  a  little  trunk  in  a  wooden 
niche,  her  clothes  in  a  chest  that  stood  in  the  garret." 
Here  is  the  life  history  of  an  unmarried  working  woman 
of  eighty-six  born  in  a  Silesian  village.  When  she  left 
school  she  was  apprenticed  to  a  thrasher,  with  a  yearly 
wage  of  four  thalers,  besides  two  chemises  and  two  aprons 
as  a  Christmas  present.  Even  in  those  days  this  money 
did  not  suffice  for  clothing,  although  even  in  winter  the 
women  wore  no  warm  under-garments.  Quite  unpro- 
tected, they  waded  up  to  the  middle  in  snow.  ...  In 
summer  the  girl  was  in  the  barn  and  at  work  by  dawn ; 
in  winter  they  threshed  by  artificial  light.  A  bit  of 
bread  taken  in  the  pocket  served  as  breakfast.  The 
first  warm  meal  was  taken  at  midday.  When  the 
farm  work  was  finished  there  was  spinning  to  do  till 
10  o'clock." 

This  woman  "  bettered  herself"  as  she  grew  older 
till  she  was  earning  35  thalers  (£5,  55.  od.)  a  year ;  she 
accustomed  herself  to  live  on  this  sum,  and  when 
wages  increased,  to  put  by  the  surplus.  So  in  her  old 
age  she  is  a  capitalist,  has  saved  enough  for  a  decent 
funeral,  for  certain  small  legacies,  and  for  such  an 
amazing  luxury  as  a  tin  foot-warmer.  The  family 
she  faithfully  served  for  so  many  years  allows  her  coal, 
milk  and  potatoes,  and  when  necessary  pays  for  doctor 
and  medicine.  Her  weekly  budget  is  as  follows — 

Pf. 

Rent  ....  .50 
Bread  ....  .25 
Rolls 5 

Carried  forward      ,  .         80 


284  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 


Brought  forward 
|  Ib.  butter. 
£  Ib.  coffee  and  chicory 
Sugar 
I  Ib.  flour 
Salt. 
Light 
Washing  . 


Pf. 
80 

25 
25 
15 
,14 

I 
10 

5 

im.  75 


Meat  is  of  course  out  of  the  question,  and  in  discuss- 
ing another  budget  Fraulein  Dyhrenfurth  shows  that 
a  family  of  eight  people  could  only  afford  three 
quarters  of  a  pound  a  week.  Their  yearly  expenses 
amounted  to  455  m.  26  pf.,  so  each  one  of  the  eight 
had  to  be  fed  and  clothed  for  about  is.  id.  a  week. 
Women  are  still  terribly  overworked  in  the  fields. 
They  used  to  begin  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and 
go  on  till  nine  at  night, — a  working  day,  that  is,  of 
seventeen  hours  for  a  wife  and  the  mother  of  a  family. 
When  the  family  at  the  mansion  had  the  great  half- 
yearly  wash,  the  village  women  called  in  to  help  began 
at  midnight,  and  stood  at  the  washtub  till  eight  o'clock 
next  evening,  twenty  hours,  that  is,  on  end.  In  1880 
the  working  day  was  shortened,  and  only  lasts  now 
from  five  in  the  morning  till  seven  at  night,  with  a 
two  hours'  pause  for  dinner  and  shorter  pauses  for 
breakfast  and  vesper.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  women 
do  work  now  that  only  men  did  in  former  times.  The 
threshing  of  corn  has  fallen  entirely  into  their  hands, 
and  they  follow  a  plough  yoked  with  oxen.  Both 
kinds  of  work  are  heavy  and  unpleasant.  But  women 
are  glad  to  get  the  threshing  in  winter  time  when 
other  work  fails,  and  it  is  often  on  this  account  that 
the  proprietors  do  not  introduce  threshing  machines. 

At  certain  times  of  the  year  Poles  swarm  over  the 


PEASANT  LIFE  285 

frontier  into  the  eastern  provinces  of  Germany,  but 
Fraulein  Dyhrenfurth  says  that  they  do  not  work  for 
lower  wages.  The  women  have  no  house-keeping 
to  do,  and  can  therefore  give  more  hours  to  field 
labour.  One  woman  prepares  a  meal  for  a  whole 
gang  of  her  country  people,  and  they  live  almost 
entirely  on  bread,  potatoes,  and  brandy.  They  do 
not  mix  with  the  Germans,  but  spend  their  evenings 
and  Sundays  in  playing  the  harmonium,  dancing, 
and  drinking.  They  return  every  year,  are  always 
foreigners  in  Germany,  and  are  very  industrious, 
religious,  contented,  and  cheerful,  but  inclined  to  drink 
and  fight. 


CHAPTER  XXV 
HOW  THE  POOR  LIVE 

OVERT  Y  in  German  cities  puts  on  a  more 
L  respectable  face  than  it  does  in  London  or 
Manchester.  It  herds  in  the  cellars  and  courtyards  of 
houses  that  have  an  imposing  frontage;  and  when  it 
walks  out  of  doors  it  does  not  walk  in  rags.  But  you 
only  have  to  look  at  the  pinched  faces  of  the  children 
in  the  poorer  quarters  of  any  city  to  know  that  it  is 
there.  They  are  tidier  and  cleaner  than  English  slum 
children,  but  they  make  you  wish  just  as  ardently  that 
you  were  the  Pied  Piper  and  could  pipe  them  all  with 
you  to  a  land  of  plenty.  It  would  require  more 
experience  and  wider  facts  than  I  possess  to  compare 
the  condition  of  the  poor  in  England  and  Germany, 
especially  as  the  professed  economists  and  philan- 
thropists who  make  it  their  business  to  understand 
such  things  disagree  with  each  other  about  every  detail. 
If  you  talk  to  Englishmen,  one  will  tell  you  that  the 
German  starves  on  rye  bread  and  horse  sausage  because 
he  is  oppressed  by  an  iniquitous  tariff;  and  the  next 
will  assure  you  that  the  German  flourishes  and  fattens 
on  the  high  wages  and  prosperous  trade  he  owes 
entirely  to  his  admirable  protective  laws.  If  you  talk 
to  the  Anglophobe,  he  will  tell  you  that  the  dirt, 
drunkenness,  disease,  and  extravagance  of  the  English 

lower  classes  are  the  sin  and  scandal  of  the  civilised 

286 


HOW  THE  POOR  LIVE  287 

world ;  that  it  is  useless  for  you  to  ask  where  the  poor 
live  in  Berlin,  because  there  are  no  poor.  Everyone  in 
Germany  is  clean,  virtuous,  well  housed,  and  well-to-do. 
If  you  talk  to  an  honest,  reasonable  German,  he  will 
recognise  that  each  country  has  its  own  difficulties  and 
its  own  shortcomings,  and  that  both  countries  make 
valiant  efforts  to  fight  their  own  dragons.  He  will  tell 
you  of  the  suffering  that  exists  amongst  the  German 
poor  crowded  into  these  houses  with  the  imposing 
fronts,  and  of  all  that  statecraft  and  philanthropy  are 
patiently  trying  to  accomplish.  Doctor  Shadwell,  in 
his  most  valuable  and  interesting  book  Industrial 
Efficiency,  says  that  the  American  has  to  pay  twice  as 
much  rent  as  the  English  working  man,  and  that  rents 
in  Germany  are  nearer  the  American  than  the  English 
level.  As  wages  are  lower  in  Germany  than  in 
England,  and  as  meat  and  groceries  are  decidedly 
dearer,  it  is  plain  that  the  working  man  cannot  live  in 
clover.  Doctor  Shadwell  gives  an  example  of  a  smith 
earning  1050  marks,  and  having  to  pay  280  for  rent. 
He  had  a  wife  and  two  children,  and  Doctor  Shadwell 
reckoned  that  the  family  to  make  two  ends  meet  must 
live  on  37  pf.  per  head  per  day ;  the  prison  scale  per 
head  being  80  pf.  I  know  a  respectable  German  char- 
woman who  earns  41  marks  a  month,  and  pays  25 
marks  a  month  for  her  parterre  flat  in  the  Hof.  She 
lets  off  all  her  rooms  except  the  kitchen,  and  she  sleeps 
in  a  place  that  is  only  fit  for  a  coal-hole.  A  work-girl 
pays  her  6  marks  a  month  for  a  clean  tidy  bedroom 
furnished  with  a  solid  wooden  bedstead,  a  chest  of 
drawers,  a  sofa,  and  a  table.  This  girl  works  from  7.30 
to  6  in  a  shop,  she  pays  the  charwoman  10  pf.  for  her 
breakfast,  10  pf.  weekly  for  her  lamp,  and  another 
10  pf.  for  the  use  and  comfort  of  the  kitchen  fire 
at  night.  Her  dinner  of  soup,  meat,  and  vegetables  the 


288  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

girl  gets  at  a  Privatkilche  for  40  pf.  So  the  workgirl's 
weekly  expenses  for  food,  fire,  and  lodging  are  5  marks 
20  pf.,  but  this  does  not  give  her  an  evening  meal  or 
afternoon  coffee.  The  charwoman  reckoned  that  she 
herself  only  had  I  5  marks  a  month  for  food,  fire,  light, 
and  clothes ;  but  she  got  nearly  all  her  food  with  the 
families  for  whom  she  worked.  She  was  a  cheerful, 
honest  body,  and  though  she  slept  in  a  coal-hole  was 
apparently  quite  healthy.  She  looked  forward  to  her 
old  age  with  tranquillity,  because  before  long  she  would 
be  in  receipt  of  a  pension  from  the  State,  a  weekly  sum 
that  with  her  habits  of  thrift  and  industry  would  enable 
her  to  live. 

A  German  lady  who  chooses  to  teach  in  a  Volks- 
schule,  because  she  thinks  the  Volk  more  interesting 
than  Higher  Daughters,  described  a  home  to  me  from 
which  one  of  her  pupils  came.  The  parents  had  eight 
children,  and  the  family  of  ten  lived  in  two  rooms. 
That  is  a  state  of  things  we  can  match  in  England, 
unhappily.  But  my  friend  described  this  home,  not  on 
account  of  its  misery,  but  for  the  extraordinary  neatness 
and  comfort  the  mother  maintained  in  it.  "  Every 
time  I  go  there,"  said  my  friend,  who  lived  with  her 
father  and  sister  in  a  charming  flat, — "  every  time  I  go 
there  I  say  to  the  woman,  if  only  it  looked  like  this  in 
my  home  " ;  and  there  was  no  need  for  me  to  see  the 
rooms  to  understand  what  she  meant ;  for  I  know  the 
air  of  order  and  even  of  solidity  with  which  the  poorest 
Germans  will  surround  themselves  if  they  are  respect- 
able. They  have  very  few  pieces  of  furniture,  but  those 
few  will  stand  wear  and  tear;  they  prefer  a  clean 
painted  floor  to  a  filthy  carpet,  and  they  are  so  poor 
that  they  have  no  pence  to  spend  on  plush  photograph 
frames.  I  cannot  remember  what  weekly  wage  this 
family  existed  on,  but  I  know  that  it  seemed  quite 


HOW  THE  POOR  LIVE  289 

inadequate,  and  when  I  asked  if  the  children  were 
healthy  as  well  as  clean  and  tidy,  my  friend  admitted 
that  they  were  not.  In  spite  of  the  brave  struggle 
made  by  the  parents,  it  was  impossible  to  bring  up  a 
large  family  on  such  means,  and  the  maladies  arising 
from  insufficient  food,  fire,  and  clothing  afflicted  them. 
The  case  is,  I  think,  a  typical  one.  English  people  are 
always  impressed  when  they  visit  German  cities  by  the 
tidy  clothes  poor  people  wear,  and  if  they  are  shown  the 
right  interiors,  by  their  clean  tidy  homes.  But  you  need 
most  carefully  and  widely  collected  facts  and  figures  to 
judge  how  far  the  children  of  a  nation  are  suffering 
from  poverty.  It  was  found,  for  instance,  in  one 
German  city,  that  out  of  1472  children  examined  in 
the  elementary  schools,  63  per  cent,  of  the  girls  and 
60  per  cent,  of  the  boys  were  nicht  vollig  normal. 

Moreover,  there  are  whole  classes  of  poor  people  in 
Germany  whose  homes  are  not  tidy  and  comfortable, 
who  are  crowded  into  cellars  and  courtyards,  and  who 
have  neither  time  nor  strength  for  the  decencies  of  life. 
The  "  Sweater "  flourishes  in  Berlin  as  well  as  in 
London,  and  his  victims  are  as  overworked  as  they  are 
here.  He  is  usually  a  Jew,  it  is  said  in  Berlin,  but  I 
will  not  guarantee  the  truth  of  that,  for  I  have  not 
observed  that  the  Jew  is  anywhere  a  harder  task- 
master than  the  Christian.  As  Berlin  grew,  these 
spiders  of  society  increased  in  numbers,  finding  it  easy 
and  profitable  to  employ  home  workers  and  spare 
themselves  the  expenses  of  factories  and  of  insurance. 
Women  who  could  not  go  out  to  work  were  tempted 
by  the  chance  offered  them  of  earning  a  trifle  at  home, 
and  woman-like  never  paused  to  reckon  whether  it  was 
worth  earning.  As  the  city  gets  larger  every  evil 
connected  with  the  system  increases.  The  worst 
paid  are  naturally  the  incompetent  rough  peasant 
19 


2QO  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

women  who  swarm  into  Berlin  from  the  country 
districts,  because  they  think  that  it  will  be  easier 
to  sit  at  a  machine  than  to  labour  in  the  fields. 
These  people  have  to  buy  their  machines  and  their 
cotton  at  high  prices  from  their  employers,  and  then 
they  get  10  pf.  for  making  a  blouse.  A  lady  who 
spends  her  life  in  working  amongst  poor  people  told 
me  that  many  of  them  worked  for  nothing  in  reality, 
because  the  trifle  they  earned  only  just  paid  the 
difference  between  the  food  they  had  to  buy  ready 
cooked  and  the  food  they  might  with  more  leisure 
prepare  at  home.  They  pay  high  rents  for  wretched 
homes,  £1  5,  for  instance,  for  a  kitchen  and  one  room  in 
a  dark  courtyard.  Under  £13  it  is  impossible  to  get 
anything  in  the  poorest  quarter  of  Berlin. 

"  The  house  itself  looked  respectable  enough  from 
outside,"  says  Frau  Buchholz,  when  she  went  to  see  a 
girl  who  had  just  married  a  poor  man  ;  "  but  oh  !  those 
steep  narrow  stairs  that  I  had  to  mount,  those  wretched 
entrances  on  each  floor,  the  miserable  door  handles,  the 
sickly  bluish-grey  walls,  the  shaky  banisters  !  It  was 
easy  to  see  that  the  outside  had  been  devised  with  a 
view  to  investors,  and  the  inside  for  poverty."  In  houses 
of  this  class  there  are  often  three  courtyards,  one  behind 
each  other,  all  noisy  and  badly  kept.  The  conditions 
of  life  in  such  circumstances  are  no  better  than  in  our 
own  notorious  slums,  but  a  slum  seven  storeys  high,  and 
presenting  a  decent  front  to  the  world,  does  not  suggest 
the  real  misery  behind  its  regular  row  of  windows,  nor 
does  the  quiet  well-swept  street  give  any  picture  of  the 
rabbit  warren  in  the  courtyards  at  the  back.  In  the 
enormous  "  confection  "  trade  of  Berlin  the  home-workers 
are  nearly  all  widows  and  mothers  of  families,  as  the 
unmarried  girls  prefer  to  go  to  factories.  A  skilled 
hand  can  earn  a  fair  wage  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year, 


HOW  THE  POOR  LIVE  291 

as  the  demand  for  skilled  work  in  this  department  always 
exceeds  the  supply.  But  the  average  wage  of  the  un- 
skilled worker  is  only  I  o  marks  a  week,  while  it  sinks  as 
low  as  4  marks  for  petticoats,  aprons,  and  woollen  goods. 
A  corset  maker,  who  has  learned  her  trade,  can  only 
make  from  8  to  10  marks  a  week  in  a  factory,  while  a 
woman  who  sits  at  home  and  covers  umbrellas  gets 
I  mark  50  pf.  a  dozen  when  the  coverings  are  of  stuff, 
and  slightly  more  when  they  are  of  silk.  The  extreme 
poverty  of  these  home-workers  is  a  constant  subject  of 
inquiry  and  legislation,  but  for  various  reasons  it  is 
most  difficult  to  combat.  The  market  is  always  over- 
crowded, because,  badly  paid  as  it  is,  the  work  is  popular. 
Women  push  into  it  from  the  middle  classes  for  the  sake 
of  pocket-money,  and  from  the  agrarian  classes  because 
they  fancy  a  city  life.  Efforts  are  being  made  to  organise 
them,  and  especially  to  train  the  daughters  of  these 
women  to  more  healthy  and  profitable  trades.  I  went 
over  a  small  Volkskuche  in  Berlin,  and  was  told  that 
there  were  many  like  it  established  by  various  charitable 
agencies,  and  that  the  effect  of  them  was  to  make  the 
children  ready  to  go  into  service ;  a  life  that  has  some 
drawbacks,  but  should  at  any  rate  be  wholesome  and 
civilising, — a  better  preparation  for  marriage,  too,  than 
to  sit  like  a  slattern  over  a  machine  all  day,  and  buy 
scraps  of  expensive  ready-made  food,  because  both  time 
and  skill  are  wanting  for  anything  more  palatable.  In 
the  kitchen  I  visited  there  were  sixteen  children  from 
the  poorest  families  in  the  neighbourhood,  and,  assisted 
by  a  superintendent  and  two  teachers,  they  were  pre- 
paring a  dinner  that  cost  30  pf.  a  head  for  250  people. 
The  rooms  were  clean  and  plainly  furnished.  A  small 
laundry  business  was  run  in  connection  with  the  kitchen, 
so  that  the  girls  should  be  thoroughly  trained  to  wash 
and  iron  as  well  as  to  cook.  Of  late  years  the  working 


292  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

classes  of  Berlin  have  adopted  what  they  call  Englische 
Tischzeit,  and  no  one  who  knows  the  ways  of  the  English 
artisan  will  guess  that  the  German  means  late  dinner. 
He  now  does  his  long  day's  work,  I  am  told,  on  bread 
alone,  and  has  the  one  solid  meal  in  the  twenty-four 
hours  when  he  gets  home  at  night.  Arbeiten  durch,  he 
calls  it,  and  people  interested  in  the  welfare  of  the  poor 
say  it  is  bad  for  all  concerned,  but  especially  bad  for 
the  children,  who  come  in  too  exhausted  to  eat,  and 
for  the  women,  who  have  to  cook  and  clean  up  when 
the  day's  business  should  be  nearly  done.  It  is  quite 
characteristic  of  some  kinds  of  modern  Germans  that 
they  should  in  a  breath  condemn  us,  imitate  us,  and 
completely  misunderstand  our  ways. 

The  business  women  of  Germany  have  organised 
themselves.  Der  Kaufmdnnische  Verbandfiir  Weibliche 
Angestellte  was  founded  by  Herr  Julius  Meyer  in  1889, 
and,  beginning  with  50  members,  numbered  17,000  in 
1904.  Its  aim  has  been  to  improve  the  conditions  of 
life  for  women  working  in  shops  and  businesses,  to  carry 
on  their  education,  and  to  help  them  when  ill  or  out  of 
work.  It  began  by  opening  commercial  schools  for 
women,  where  they  could  receive  a  thorough  training 
in  book-keeping,  shorthand,  typewriting,  and  other 
branches  of  office  work.  These  have  been  a  great 
success,  have  been  imitated  all  over  Germany,  and  have 
led  to  an  expansion  of  the  law  enforcing  on  girls  attend- 
ance at  the  State  continuation  schools.  The  society 
was  founded  to  remedy  some  crying  abuses  amongst 
women  employed  in  shops  and  offices,  a  working  day  of 
seventeen  hours,  for  instance,  dismissal  without  notice, 
no  rest  on  Sundays,  no  summer  holiday,  and  not  only 
a  want  of  seats  but  an  actual  prohibition  to  sit  down 
even  when  unemployed.  All  these  matters  the  society, 
which  has  become  a  powerful  one,  has  gradually  set 


HOW  THE  POOR  LIVE  293 

right.  A  ten-hours'  day  for  grown-up  women,  and  eight 
hours  for  those  under  age,  the  provision  of  seats,  an 
8  o'clock  closing  rule,  a  month's  notice  on  either  side, 
some  hours  of  rest  on  Sunday,  and  a  summer  holiday 
are  all  secured  to  members  of  the  organisation.  The 
system  of  "  living  in "  does  not  obtain  in  Germany. 
Shops  may  only  open  for  five  hours  on  Sundays  now, 
and  large  numbers  do  not  open  at  all.  They  may  only 
keep  open  after  ten  on  twenty  days  in  the  year.  Other 
reforms  the  society  hopes  to  bring  about  in  time ;  and 
meanwhile  it  occupies  itself  both  in  rinding  work  for 
members  who  are  out  of  place,  and  in  protecting  those 
who  are  sick  and  destitute. 

The  ladies  of  Germany  have  taken  to  philanthropic 
work  with  characteristic  energy  and  thoroughness. 
There  is  one  society  in  Berlin  that  has  700  members, 
some  of  whom  devote  their  whole  time  to  their  poor 
neighbours.  I  am  not  going  to  give  the  name  of  the 
society,  so  I  may  describe  one  of  its  secretaries,  who 
personified  the  best  modern  type  of  German  woman. 
She  was  about  27,  a  dark-haired,  slim,  serious-looking 
person  with  delicate  Jewish  features  and  beautiful  grey 
eyes ;  a  girl  belonging  to  the  wealthy  classes,  and  able 
if  she  had  chosen  to  lead  a  life  of  frivolity  and  pleasure. 
But  she  had  chosen  instead  to  give  herself  to  the  sick, 
the  afflicted,  the  needy,  and  even  to  the  sinning ;  for 
she  was  a  moving  spirit  of  the  organisation  that  dives 
down  into  the  depths  of  the  great  city,  and  rescues 
those  who  have  gone  under.  Her  society  also  does  a 
great  deal  for  the  children  of  the  very  poor,  not  only 
for  babies  in  creches,  but  for  those  who  go  to  school. 
The  members  help  these  older  ones  with  their  school 
work,  and  when  the  children  are  free  teach  them  to 
wash,  cook,  and  sew,  and  to  play  open-air  games. 
They  teach  the  blind,  they  look  after  the  deserted 


294  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

families  of  men  in  prison,  and  the  older  members  act 
as  guardians  to  illegitimate  children ;  for  in  Germany 
every  illegitimate  child  must  have  a  guardian,  and  women 
are  now  allowed  to  act  in  this  capacity.  The  secretary 
said  they  found  no  difficulty  in  getting  both  married 
and  single  women  to  take  up  these  good  works. 

"  What  do  the  parents  say  when  their  daughters  take 
it  up  ? "  I  asked,  for  I  could  not  picture  the  German 
girl  as  I  had  always  known  her  going  out  into  the 
highways  and  byways  of  the  city,  leaving  her  cooking, 
her  music,  her  embroidery,  and  her  sentiment,  and 
battling  with  the  hideous  realities  of  life  amongst  the 
sick,  the  poor,  and  the  more  or  less  wicked  of  the  earth. 

"  The  parents  don't  like  it,"  my  girl  with  the  honest 
eyes  admitted.  "  When  girls  have  worked  for  us  some 
time  they  often  refuse  to  marry ;  at  least,  they  refuse 
the  arranged  marriages  proposed  to  them.  But  we 
cannot  stop  on  that  account.  If  a  girl  does  not  wish 
to  marry  in  this  way  it  is  better  that  she  should  not. 
No  good  can  come  of  it." 

Then  she  went  on  to  tell  me  how  well  it  was  that 
a  child  born  to  utmost  shame  and  poverty  should  have 
a  woman  of  the  better  classes  interested  from  the  be- 
ginning in  its  welfare,  and  responsible  for  its  decent 
upbringing.  It  implied  contact  with  various  officials, 
of  course,  but  she  said  that  the  ladies  who  took  this 
work  in  hand  met  with  courtesy  and  support  every- 
where. 

You  have  only  to  place  this  type  of  young  woman 
beside  the  Backfisch,  who  represents  an  older  type 
quite  fairly,  to  understand  how  far  the  modern  German 
girl  has  travelled  from  the  traditional  lines.  If  you 
can  imagine  the  Backfisch  married  and  mentally  little 
altered  in  her  middle  age,  you  can  also  imagine  that 
she  would  find  a  daughter  with  the  new  ideas  upsetting. 


HOW  THE  POOR  LIVE  295 

At  present  both  types  are  living  side  by  side,  for  there 
are  still  numbers  of  women  of  the  old  school  in 
Germany,  women  who  passively  accept  the  life  made 
for  them  by  their  surroundings,  whether  it  suits  their 
needs  or  not ;  and  who  would  never  strike  out  a  path 
for  themselves,  even  if  by  doing  so  they  could  forget 
their  own  troubles  in  the  troubles  of  others. 

The  State  and  Municipal  establishments  for  the  poor 
and  sick  have  been  so  much  described  lately,  that 
everyone  in  England  must  be  acquainted  with  all 
that  Berlin  does  for  its  struggling  citizens.  There 
are,  of  course,  large  hospitals  and  sanatorium s  for 
consumption;  and  the  admirable  system  of  national 
insurance  secures  help  in  sickness  to  every  working 
man  and  woman,  as  well  as  a  pension  in  old  age. 
"  The  club  doctor  and  dispensary  as  we  have  them 
here  do  not  exist,"  say  the  Birmingham  Brassworkers 
in  their  pamphlet.  "  In  their  stead  leading  doctors  and 
specialists  (with  very  few  exceptions)  are  at  the  service 
of  the  working  man  or  woman." 

"  Yes,"  said  a  leading  doctor  to  me  when  I  quoted 
this ;  "  we  get  about  three  half-pence  for  a  consultation, 
and  we  find  them  the  most  impossible  people  in  the 
community  to  satisfy.  As  they  get  medical  advice 
for  nothing  they  run  from  one  doctor  to  another,  and 
consult  a  dozen  about  some  simple  ailment  that  a 
student  could  set  right.  We  all  suffer  from  them." 
So  that  is  the  other  side  of  the  question. 

But  Berlin  certainly  manages  its  Submerged  Tenth 
both  more  humanely  and  more  wisely  than  we  manage 
ours.  It  begins,  as  one  thinks  any  civilised  country 
must,  by  separating  those  who  will  not  work  from  those 
who  cannot.  The  able-bodied  beggar,  the  drunkard,  and 
other  vagrants  are  sent  to  a  house  of  correction  and 
made  to  work.  The  respectable  poor  are  not  driven 


296  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

to  herd  with  these  people  in  Germany.  They  receive 
shelter  and  assistance  at  institutions  reserved  for  the 
deserving.  In  one  of  these  old  married  people  who 
cannot  support  themselves  are  allowed  to  spend  the 
evening  of  their  lives  together.  Anyone  desiring  to 
know  more  about  the  charitable  institutions  of  Berlin 
will  find  a  most  interesting  account  of  them  in  the 
pamphlet  written  by  the  Birmingham  Brassworkers, 
and  published  by  P.  S.  King  &  Son.  The  bias  of 
the  authors  is  so  strongly  German  that  when  you 
have  read  to  the  end  you  begin  to  lean  in  the 
opposite  direction,  and  look  for  the  things  we  manage 
better  over  here.  "  In  1 900,"  they  say,  "  there  was 
such  a  shortage  of  houses  (in  Berlin)  that  1500 
families  had  to  be  sheltered  in  the  Municipal  Refuge 
for  Homeless  People."  That  is  surely  a  worse  state 
of  affairs  than  in  London.  But  when  you  walk 
through  London  or  a  London  suburb  in  winter,  and 
are  pestered  at  every  crossing  and  corner  by  able- 
bodied  young  beggars  of  both  sexes,  you  begin  to 
agree  with  the  brassworkers.  Berlin  is  clear  of 
beggars  and  crossing-sweepers  all  the  year  round,  and 
you  know  that  as  far  as  possible  they  are  classified 
and  treated  according  to  their  deserts.  It  is  not 
possible  for  the  individual  bent  on  his  own  business 
to  know  at  a  glance  whether  he  will  encourage  vice 
by  giving  alms  or  behave  brutally  to  a  deserving  case 
by  withholding  them.  The  decision  should  never 
be  forced  upon  him  as  it  is  in  England  every  day  of 
his  life. 


CHAPTER   XXVI 

BERLIN 

ONCE  upon  a  time  a  German  got  hold  of  Aladdin's 
lamp,  and  he  summoned  the  Djinn  attendant  on 
the  lamp.  "  Build  me  a  city  of  broad  airy  streets,"  he 
bade  him,  "  and  where  several  streets  meet  see  that 
there  is  an  open  place  set  with  trees  and  statues  and 
fountains."  All  the  houses,  even  those  that  the  poor 
inhabit,  are  to  be  big  and  white  and  shining,  like 
palaces ;  but  the  real  palaces  where  princes  shall  live 
may  be  plain  and  grey.  There  are  to  be  pleasure 
grounds  in  the  midst  of  the  city,  but  they  are  to  be 
woods  rather  than  parks,  because  even  you  and  the 
lamp  cannot  make  grass  grow  in  this  soil  and  climate. 
In  the  pleasure  grounds,  and  especially  on  either  side 
of  one  broad  avenue,  there  are  to  be  sculptured  figures 
of  kings  and  heroes,  larger  than  life  and  as  white  as 
snow.  The  Djinn  said  it  would  be  easy  to  build  the 
city  in  a  night  as  the  German  desired,  but  that  the 
sculpture  could  not  be  hurried  in  this  way,  because 
artists  would  have  to  make  it,  and  artists  were  people 
who  would  not  work  to  order  or  to  time.  The  German, 
however,  said  he  was  master  of  the  lamp,  and  that  the 
city  must  be  ready  when  he  wanted  it  early  next 
morning.  So  the  Djinn  set  to  work  and  got  the  city 
ready  in  a  night,  sculpture  and  all.  But  when  he  had 
finished  he  had  not  used  half  the  figures  and  garlands 
and  other  stone  ornaments  he  had  made.  If  he  had 
been  in  England  he  might  have  reduced  them  in  size, 


297 


298  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

and  given  them  to  an  Italian  hawker  to  carry  about 
on  his  head  on  a  tray.  But  he  knew  that  hawkers 
would  not  be  allowed  in  the  city  he  had  built.  So, 
as  he  was  rather  tired  and  anxious  to  be  done,  he 
quickly  made  one  more  long,  broad  street  stretching 
all  the  way  from  the  pleasure  ground  in  the  centre 
of  the  city  to  the  forest  that  begins  where  the  city 
ends ;  and  on  every  house  in  the  street  he  put  figures 
and  garlands  and  gilded  balconies  and  ornamental 
turrets,  as  many  as  he  could.  The  effect  when  he 
had  finished  pleased  him  vastly,  and  he  said  it  was 
the  finest  street  in  the  city,  and  should  be  called  the 
Kurfurstendamm.  His  master  and  all  the  Germans 
who  came  to  live  in  it  agreed  with  him.  They  gave 
large  rents  for  a  flat  in  one  of  the  houses,  and  when 
they  went  to  London  and  saw  the  smoky  dwarfish 
houses  there  they  came  away  as  quickly  as  possible 
and  rubbed  their  hands  and  were  happy,  and  said 
to  each  other,  "  How  beautiful  is  our  Kurfurstendamm. 
We  have  as  many  turrets  as  we  have  chimneys,  and 
we  have  garlands  on  our  balconies  of  green  or  gilded 
iron,  and  some  of  us  have  angelic  figures  made  of  red 
brick,  so  that  the  angelic  faces  are  checked  with  white 
where  the  bricks  are  joined  together." 

"  But  it  does  not  become  anyone  from  England  to 
criticise  the  architecture  and  sculpture  of  a  foreign 
country,"  I  said  to  the  artist  who  told  me  the  story 
of  the  lamp.  "  Our  own  is  notoriously  bad." 

"  It  is  not  you  who  will  criticise  ours,"  he  answered. 
"  By  your  own  confession,  you  know  nothing  whatever 
of  architecture  and  sculpture,  and  when  people  know 
nothing  they  should  either  keep  silence  or  ask  for 
information  in  the  best  quarter.  You  have  my  authority 
for  saying  that  the  architects  and  sculptors  of  Berlin 
would  have  been  better  employed  building  dog-kennels." 


BERLIN  299 

"  But  I  rather  like  your  wide  cheerful  streets,"  I  ob- 
jected, "  and  your  tall  clean  houses.  Our  houses  .  .  ." 

"  Your  houses  are  little  black  boxes  in  which  people 
eat  and  sleep.  They  do  not  pretend  to  anything. 
Ours  pretend  to  be  beautiful,  and  are  ridiculous. 
Moreover,  in  England  there  are  men  who  can  build 
beautiful  houses.  You  do  not  employ  them  much. 
You  prefer  your  ugly  little  boxes.  But  they  are 
there.  I  know  their  names  and  their  work." 
-  "  But  what  do  you  think  of  our  statues  ?  "  I  asked  him 

"  I  don't  think  of  them,"  he  said  ;  "  I  prefer  to  think 
of  something  pleasant.  When  I  am  in  London  I 
spend  every  hour  I  have  at  the  docks." 

"  I  like  the  Sieges- A llee"  I  said  boldly, — "  it  is  so 
clean  and  cheerful." 

"  It  was  made  for  people  who  look  at  sculpture  from 
that  point  of  view,"  said  my  friend. 

I  hardly  know  where  an  artist  finds  inspiration  in  the 
streets  of  Berlin.  It  really  makes  the  impression  of  a 
city  that  has  sprung  up  in  a  night,  and  that  is  kept 
clean  by  invisible  forces.  The  great  breadth  of  the 
streets,  the  avenues  of  trees  everywhere,  and  the 
many  open  places  make  it  pleasant ;  but  you  look  in 
vain  for  the  narrow  lanes  and  gabled  houses  still  to  be 
found  in  other  German  towns,  and  you  are  not  surprised 
when  Americans  compare  it  with  Chicago,  because  it  is 
so  new  and  busy.  It  is  indeed  the  city  of  the  modern 
German  spirit,  and  what  it  has  of  old  tradition  and 
old  social  life  lies  beneath  the  surface,  hidden  from  the 
eye  of  the  stranger.  There  is  Sans-Souci,  to  be  sure, 
and  Frederick  the  Great,  and  the  Grosser  Kurflirst. 
There  is  the  double  line  of  princes  on  either  side  of  the 
Sieges- Allee.  But  modern  Berlin  dates  from  1870, 
and  so  do  all  good  Berliners,  whatever  their  age  may 
be.  They  are  proud  of  their  young  empire  and  of 


300  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

their  big  city,  and  of  doing  everything  in  the  best  poss- 
ible way.  There  is  unceasing  flux  and  growth  in  Berlin, 
so  that  descriptions  written  a  few  years  ago  are  as 
out  of  date  as  these  impressions  must  be  soon.  For 
instance,  I  had  counted  steadfastly  on  finding  three 
things  there  that  I  cannot  find  at  home:  first  and 
second-class  cabs,  hordes  of  soldiers  everywhere,  and 
policemen  who  would  run  a  sword  through  you  if  you 
looked  at  them ;  and  of  -all  these  I  was  more  or  less 
disappointed. 

I  did  get  hold  of  a  second-class  cab  on  my  arrival  in 
Berlin,  but  it  nearly  came  to  pieces  on  the  way,  and  I 
never  saw  another  during  my  stay  there.  The  cabs 
are  all  provided  with  the  taximeter  now,  so  that  the  fare 
knows  to  a  fraction  what  is  due  to  the  driver ;  and  the 
drivers  are  of  the  first  class,  and  wear  white  hats.  Any- 
one who  wished  to  see  a  second-class  cab  would  have 
to  make  inquiries,  and  find  a  stand  where  some  still 
languish,  but  before  long  the  last  of  them  will  probably 
be  preserved  in  a  museum.  Cabs  are  not  much  used  in 
Berlin,  because  communication  by  the  electric  cars  is 
so  well  organised.  The  whole  population  travels  by 
them,  the  whole  city  is  possessed  by  them.  If  it  is  to 
convey  a  true  impression,  a  description  of  Berlin  should 
run  to  the  moan  of  them  as  they  glide  everlastingly  to 
and  fro.  You  can  hardly  escape  their  noise,  and  not 
for  long  their  sight.  Even  the  Tiergarten,  the  Hyde 
Park  of  Berlin,  is  traversed  by  them,  which  is  as  it 
should  be  in  a  municipal  republic.  This  is  what  the 
Germans  call  their  city,  for  they  are  not  conscious 
themselves  of  living  under  an  autocracy  or  of  being  in 
any  sense  of  the  word  less  free  than,  let  us  say,  the 
English,  a  point  of  view  most  puzzling  to  an  English 
person,  who  is  conscious  from  the  moment  he  crosses 
the  German  frontier  of  being  governed  for  his  good. 


BERLIN  301 

But  it  is  pleasant  on  a  summer  morning  to  be  carried 
through  the  shady  avenues  of  the  Tiergarten  in  an  open 
car,  whether  it  is  an  autocracy  or  are  public  that  arranges 
it  for  you ;  and  you  reflect  that  in  this  and  a  thousand 
other  ways  Germany  is  an  agreeable  country  even  if  it 
is  not  a  free  one ;  especially  for  "  the  people  "  who  have 
small  means,  and  are  able  to  drive  through  the  chief 
pleasure  ground  of  their  city  for  a  penny.  The 
conductors  of  the  cars  are  obliged  to  announce  the  name 
of  the  next  halting-place,  so  that  passengers  alighting 
may  get  up  in  time  and  step  off  directly,  but  on  no 
account  before  the  car  stops.  Nothing  is  left  to  chance 
or  muddle  in  Berlin,  and  unless  you  are  a  born  fool  you 
cannot  go  astray.  If  you  are  a  born  fool  you  ask  a 
policeman,  as  you  would  at  home,  and  find  another  dear 
illusion  shattered.  He  does  not  draw  his  sword,  he  is 
neither  gruff  nor  disobliging.  He  greets  you  with  the 
military  salute,  and  calls  you  gracious  lady.  Then  he 
answers  your  question  if  he  can.  If  not  he  gets  out  the 
little  guide  book  he  carries,  and  patiently  hunts  up  the 
street  or  the  building  you  want.  He  is  usually  a  good- 
natured  rosy  faced  young  man  with  a  fair  moustache, 
and  he  will  do  anything  in  the  world  for  you  except 
control  the  traffic.  That  with  the  best  will  in  the 
world  he  cannot  do.  So  he  stands  in  the  midst  of  it 
and  smiles.  Sometimes  he  sits  amidst  it  on  a  horse 
and  looks  solemn.  But  he  never  impresses  himself  on 
it.  There  is  a  story  of  a  policeman  who  went  to 
London  to  learn  from  our  men  what  to  do,  and  who 
bemoaned  his  fate  when  he  got  back.  "  I  hold  up  my 
hand  in  just  the  same  way,"  he  said,  "and  then  the 
people  run  and  the  horses  run,  and  there's  a  smash  and 
I  get  put  in  prison."  The  Berliners  themselves  say 
that  they  are  not  accustomed  yet,  as  we  have  been  for 
years,  to  regard  the  police  as  their  well-liked  and  trusted 


302  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

servants,  and  to  obey  their  directions  willingly.  How- 
ever this  may  be,  there  is  at  present  only  one  safe 
way  of  getting  to  the  opposite  side  of  a  busy  street 
in  Berlin,  and  that  is  to  wait  till  a  crowd  gathers 
and  charges  across  it  in  a  bunch  like  a  swarm  of 
bees. 

Berlin  is  never  asleep,  and  it  is  as  light  by  night  as  by 
day.  It  is  much  pleasanter  for  a  woman  without  escort 
to  come  out  of  the  theatre  there  than  in  London.  She 
will  find  crowds  of  respectable  people  with  her,  and  they 
will  not  depart  in  their  own  cabs  and  carriages.  They 
will  crowd  into  the  electric  cars,  and  she  must  know 
which  car  she  wants  and  crowd  with  them.  The  worst 
that  can  happen  to  her  will  be  to  find  her  car  over- 
crowded, and  in  that  case  she  must  not  expect  a  man  to 
give  her  his  seat.  I  have  seen  a  young  German  lady 
make  an  old  lady  take  her  place,  but  I  have  never 
known  men  yield  their  seats  to  women.  You  do  not 
see  as  many  private  carriages  in  Berlin  in  a  week  as 
you  do  in  some  parts  of  London  in  an  hour.  Even  in 
front  of  the  Opera  House  very  few  will  be  in  waiting ; 
and  there  is  no  fashionable  hour  for  riding  and  driving 
in  the  Tiergarten.  I  know  too  little  about  horses 
to  judge  of  those  that  were  being  ridden,  or  driven 
in  private  carriages ;  but  the  miserable  beasts  in  cabs 
and  carts  force  the  most  ignorant  person  to  observe 
and  pity  them.  They  look  as  if  they  were  on  their 
way  to  the  knacker's  yard,  and  very  often  as  if  they 
must  sink  beneath  the  load  they  are  compelled  to  carry. 
It  is  comforting  to  reflect  that  horses  will  doubtless  soon 
be  too  old-fashioned  for  Berlin,  and  that  all  the  cabs 
and  vans  of  the  future  will  be  motors.  The  cars  run 
early  enough  in  the  morning  for  the  workmen,  and  late 
enough  at  night  for  people  who  have  had  supper  at  a 
popular  restaurant  after  the  theatre  or  a  glass  of  beer 


BERLIN  303 

at  one  of  the  Zelten,  the  garden  restaurants  that  in  the 
time  of  Frederick  the  Great  were  really  tents,  and 
where  the  Berliners  flocked  then  as  they  do  now  to 
hear  a  band,  look  at  the  trees  of  the  Tiergarten,  and 
enjoy  light  refreshments.  When  you  get  back  to  your 
house  from  such  gaieties  you  find  it  locked  and  in 
darkness,  but  though  there  is  a  "  portier "  you  do  not 
disturb  him  by  calling  out  your  name  as  you  would  in 
Paris.  In  modern  houses  there  is  electric  light  outside 
each  floor  that  you  switch  on  for  yourself,  and  you  have 
a  race  with  it  that  you  lose  unless  you  are  active ;  but 
you  soon  learn  to  feel  your  way  up  to  the  next  light 
when  you  are  left  in  darkness.  The  Berlin  "  portier  " 
is  not  as  much  in  evidence  as  the  Paris  concierge.  He 
opens  the  door  to  strangers,  but  if  you  stay  or  live  in 
the  house  you  are  expected  to  carry  two  heavy  keys 
about  with  you,  one  for  the  street  door  and  one  for 
the  flat.  The  modern  doors  have  some  machinery  by 
which  they  shut  themselves  noiselessly  after  you.  You 
hear  a  great  deal  more  said  about  "  nerves  "  in  Germany 
than  in  England,  and  yet  Germans  seem  to  be  amaz- 
ingly indifferent  to  noise.  They  will  not  tolerate  the 
brass  bands  and  barrel-organs  that  pester  us,  but 
that  is  because  they  are  fond  of  music.  Screaming 
voices,  banging  doors,  and  the  clatter  of  kitchens  and 
business  premises  seem  not  to  trouble  them  at  all. 
Most  houses  in  Berlin  are  five  or  six  storeys  high,  and 
are  built  round  the  four  sides  of  a  small  paved  court. 
No  one  who  has  not  lived  in  such  a  house,  and  in  a 
room  giving  on  the  court,  can  understand  how  every 
sound  increases  and  reverberates.  Footsteps  at  dawn 
sound  as  if  the  seven-leagued  boots  had  come,  and  were 
shod  with  iron.  You  whisper  that  the  kitchen  on  a 
lower  floor  in  an  opposite  corner  looks  well  kept,  and 
the  maid  hears  what  you  say  and  looks  at  you  smiling. 


304  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

I  knew  that  the  back  premises  of  these  big  German 
hives  might  harbour  any  social  grade  and  almost  any 
industry,  and  for  a  long  time  I  vowed  that  some  one 
must  live  in  our  court  whose  business  it  was  to  hammer 
tin,  and  that  he  hammered  it  most  late  at  night  and 
early  in  the  morning.  I  had  not  heard  anything  like 
the  noise  since  I  had  lived  in  a  high  narrow  German 
street  paved  with  cobble-stones,  and  occupied  just 
opposite  my  windows  by  a  brewer  whose  vans  returned 
to  him  at  daybreak  and  tumbled  empty  casks  at  his 
door.  But  I  never  discovered  my  tin  merchant  in 
Berlin,  and  in  time  I  had  to  admit  that  my  hosts  were 
right.  The  noise  I  complained  of  was  made  by  the  cook 
washing  up  in  the  opposite  kitchen.  I  should  not  have 
noticed  it  if  I  had  been  a  sensible  person,  and  slept 
with  my  curtains  drawn  and  my  double  windows  tight 
shut. 

Of  course,  there  are  some  quiet  streets  in  Berlin,  and 
there  are  charming  homes  in  the  "  garden-houses." 
Some  of  the  quadrangles  are  built  round  a  garden 
instead  of  a  paved  yard,  and  then  you  can  get  a  quiet 
pleasant  flat  with  a  balcony  that  looks  on  a  garden 
instead  of  a  street.  The  traditional  plan  of  a  Berlin 
flat  is  most  inconvenient  and  unpractical.  In  old- 
fashioned  houses,  and  even  in  houses  built  sixteen 
years  ago  or  less,  you  find  that  one  of  the  chief  rooms 
is  the  only  thoroughfare  between  the  bedrooms  near 
the  kitchen  premises  and  the  rooms  near  the  front  door. 
Anyone  occupying  one  of  these  back  rooms,  which  are 
often  good  ones,  can  only  get  to  the  front  door  by  way  of 
this  thoroughfare,  where  he  will  usually  find  the  family 
gathered  together ;  the  maid,  too,  must  pass  through 
every  time  the  door  bell  rings,  and  when  she  goes  about 
her  business  in  the  front  regions  her  brooms  and  pails 
must  pass  through  with  her.  The  window  of  this  room, 


BERLIN  305 

which  is  known  as  a  Berliner  Zimmer,  is  always  in 
one  corner  and  lights  it  insufficiently.  The  Berliners 
themselves  recognise  its  disadvantages,  but  I  like  to 
describe  it,  because  I  observe  amongst  the  Germans 
of  to-day  a  fierce  determination  to  destroy  and  deny 
everything  a  foreigner  might  call  a  little  absurd,  even 
if  it  is  characteristic ;  so  I  feel  sure  that  if  I  go  to 
Berlin  a  few  years  hence  there  will  not  be  a  Berliner 
Zimmer  left  in  the  city,  and  no  Berliner  will  ever 
have  seen  or  heard  of  one  ;  nor  will  the  flat  doors  have 
the  quaint  little  peepholes  through  which  the  maid's 
eye  may  be  seen  appraising  you  before  she  lets  you  in. 
The  newest  houses,  those  in  the  Kurfurstendamm,  for 
instance,  have  every  "  improvement " — central  heating, 
lifts,  gas  cooking  stoves,  sinks  for  washing  up,  and 
bathrooms  that  are  a  reality  and  not  a  mere  appearance. 
These  bathrooms,  I  am  assured,  can  be  used  without 
several  hours'  notice  and  the  anxious  superintendence 
of  the  only  person,  the  head  of  the  family  as  a  rule, 
who  understands  the  heating  apparatus.  Berlin,  like 
Mr.  Barrie's  Admirable  Crichton,  has  found  out  how 
to  lay  on  hot  and  cold.  It  has  found  out  about  electric 
light  too,  and  it  might  teach  London  how  to  use  the 
telephone.  Berlin  talks  to  its  friends  by  telephone 
as  a  matter  of  course,  asks  them  how  they  are,  if  they 
enjoyed  the  Fest  last  night,  whether  if  you  call 
on  Tuesday  they  will  be  at  home.  Perhaps  when  Mr. 
Wells  goes  to  Berlin  he  will  forsee  a  reaction,  a  revolt 
against  the  incessant  insistent  bell  that  respects  no 
occupation  and  allows  no  undisturbed  rest.  It  is  a 
hurried  generation  that  uses  the  telephone  so  much,  for 
the  letter  boxes  are  emptied  eighteen  times  in  twenty- 
four  hours,  and  if  the  post  is  not  quick  enough  or  a 
telegram  too  expensive  for  all  you  want  to  say  you  can 
send  a  card  by  the  tube  post. 
20 


306  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

Berlin  is  not  the  city  of  soldiers  that  the  English 
fancy  pictures  it.  English  people,  English  little  boys, 
for  instance,  who  would  like  to  see  all  their  lead  soldiers 
come  to  life,  must  go  to  one  of  the  smaller  garrison  towns, 
where  in  every  street  and  every  square  they  will  watch 
men  on  the  march  and  at  drill.  In  those  quarters  of 
Berlin  not  occupied  by  barracks  the  population  is  civilian. 
You  see  the  grey  and  the  dark  blue  uniforms  every- 
where, but  not  in  masses  and  not  at  work.  The  people 
rush  like  children  to  follow  the  guard  changed  at  the 
Schloss  every  day  ;  just  as  they  might  in  London,  where 
soldiers  are  a  rare  spectacle.  In  a  smaller  town  the 
army  is  more  evidently  in  possession.  It  fills  the 
restaurants,  occupies  the  front  row  of  the  stalls  at  the 
opera,  prevails  in  public  gardens,  and  holds  the  pave- 
ment against  the  world.  But  Berlin  to  all  appearances 
belongs  to  its  citizens,  and  provides  for  their  profit  and 
convenience.  They  fill  its  multitude  of  houses.  They 
say  they  make  its  laws  and  order  its  progress.  At 
any  rate  they  live  in  an  agreeable,  well-managed  city, 
full  of  air  and  light,  and  kept  so  clean  that  most  other 
cities  seem  slovenly  and  grimy  by  comparison.  To  go 
suddenly  from  Berlin  to  Hamburg,  for  instance,  gives 
you  a  shock ;  though  Hamburg  is  incomparably  more 
attactive  and  delightful.  But  in  Hamburg  you  may 
see  bits  of  paper  lying  about,  and  dust  on  the  pavement. 
In  Berlin  there  is  no  dust,  and  no  one  has  ever  seen 
an  untidy  bit  of  paper  there.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
no  one  ever  travels  direct  from  Berlin  to  London. 
What  would  he  think  of  Covent  Garden  Market? 
There  are  markets  in  Berlin,  at  least  a  dozen  of  them, 
but  by  midday  they  are  swept  and  garnished.  You 
would  not  find  a  leaf  of  parsley  or  an  end  of  string  to 
tell  you  where  one  had  been. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 
ODDS  AND  ENDS 

THE    most    amusing    columns    in    German     daily 
papers  are  those  devoted  to  family  advertise- 
ment.    There  you  find  the  prolix   intimate  announce- 
ments  of  domestic    events  compared  with  which   the 
first  column  of  the  Times  is  so  bare,  so  nichtssagend. 

"  The  birth  of  a  second  son  is  announced  with  joy 
by  Dr  Johann  Weber  and  Wife  Martha,  born 
Hansen." — Dresden,  22  May  1907." 

"Emil  Harzdorf  and  wife  Magdalene,  born  Klaus, 
have  the  honour  to  announce  the  birth  of  a  strong 
girl."— Hamburg,  26  May  1907." 

Boy  babies  are  nearly  always  stramm,  the  girl 
babies  are  krdftig>  and  the  parents  are  hocherfreut,  as 
they  should  be.  Engagements  and  marriages  are 
advertised  more  simply,  and  your  eye  is  not  caught  by 
them  as  it  is  by  the  big  black  bordered  paragraphs 
that  inform  the  world  that  someone  has  just  left  it. 

"  To-day,  in  consequence  of  a  stroke  of  apoplexy,  my 
deeply  loved  husband,  our  dear  father,  grand- 
father, father-in-law,  brother,  and  uncle  fell 
asleep.  In  the  name  of  the  survivors,  Olga 
Wagner,  born  Richter.— Leipzig,  23  May  1907." 

This  is  a  curt  announcement  compared  with  many. 
When  the  deceased  has  occupied  any  kind  of  official 

post,  or  has  been  an  employer  of  labour,  a  long  register 

307 


308  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

of  his  many  virtues  accompanies  the  advertisement  of 
his  death.  "  He  who  has  just  passed  away  was  an 
exemplary  chief,  a  fatherly  friend  and  adviser,  who  by 
his  benevolence  erected  an  everlasting  monument  to 
himself  in  the  hearts  of  his  colleagues  and  subordinates." 
He  who  had  just  passed  away  had  been  the  head  of  a 
small  soap  factory,  and  this  advertisement  was  put  in  by 
the  factory  hands  just  beneath  the  one  signed  by  all 
the  family.  Another  advertisement  on  the  same  page 
expresses  thanks  for  sympathy,  "  on  the  death  of  my 
dear  wife,  our  good  mother,  grandmother,  mother-in- 
law,  aunt,  sister-in-law,  and  cousin,  Frau  Angelika 
Pankow,  born  Salbach." 

A  German  friend  who  had  to  undergo  an  operation 
last  year  wrote  just  before  to  tell  me  she  expected  to 
come  through  safely.  "If  not,"  she  said,  "  you'll  receive 
a  card  like  this  " — 

u  Yesterday  passed  away 

Adelaide  Deminski,  born  Weigert, 
Her  heart-broken 

Husband 

Grandmother 

Father 

Mother 

Sons 

Daughters 

Sons-in-law 

Daughters-in-law 

Brothers 

Sisters 

Brothers-in-law 

Sisters-in-law 

Uncles 

Aunts 

Cousins  " ; 

for  Germans  themselves  laugh  at  these  advertise- 
ments, and  assure  the  inquiring  foreigner  that  their 


ODDS  AND  ENDS  309 

vogue  has  had  its  day.  But  if  the  inquiring  foreigner 
looks  at  the  right  papers  he  will  find  as  many  as  ever. 
You  will  also  find  matrimonial  advertisements  in  papers 
that  are  considered  respectable. 

But  when  you  turn  to  the  news  columns  for  details 
of  some  event  that  is  startling  the  world,  whether  it  is 
a  crime,  an  earthquake,  a  battle,  or  a  royal  wedding, 
you  find  a  few  lines  that  vex  you  with  their  insufficiency. 
Our  English  papers  have  pages  about  a  German 
Coronation,  German  manoeuvres,  German  high  jinks  at 
Kopenick.  But  when  I  wanted  to  see  what  happened 
in  London  on  our  day  of  Diamond  Jubilee  I  found 
five  lines  about  Queen  Victoria  having  driven  to  St. 
Paul's  accompanied  by  her  family  and  some  royal 
guests.  I  was  in  a  country  inn  at  the  time,  and 
the  paper  taken  there  was  one  taken  everywhere  in  the 
duchy.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  think  that  German 
newspaper  hostility  to  England  dates  from  the 
Transvaal  War.  The  same  journal  that  spared  five 
lines  to  the  Jubilee  gave  a  column  to  a  question 
asked  by  one  of  our  parliamentary  cranks  about  the 
ill-treatment  of  natives  by  Britons  in  India.  The 
question  was  met  by  a  complete  and  convincing  denial, 
but  we  had  to  turn  to  our  English  papers  to  find  that 

recorded.     The Tageblatt  printed  the  question  with 

comments,  and  suppressed  the  denial.  As  long  ago  as 
1883,  when  there  was  cholera  in  Egypt,  a  little 
Thuringian  paper  we  saw  weekly  had  frenzied  articles 
about  the  evil  English  who  were  doing  all  they  could 
to  bring  the  scourge  to  Germany.  I  think  we  had 
refused  some  form  of  quarantine  that  modern  medical 
science  considers  worse  than  useless.  The  tone  of  the 
press  all  through  the  Transvaal  War  did  attract  some 
attention  in  this  country,  and  since  then  from  time  to 
time  we  are  presented  with  quotations  from  abusive 


310  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

articles  about  our  greed,  our  perfidy,  and  our  presump- 
tion. I  am  not  writing  as  a  journalist,  for  I  know 
nothing  whatever  of  journalism ;  but  as  a  member  of 
the  general  public  I  believe  that  we  are  inclined  to 
overrate  the  importance  of  these  amenities,  because  we 
overrate  the  part  played  by  the  newspaper  in  the 
average  German  household.  One  can  only  speak 
from  personal  experience,  but  I  should  say  that  it 
hardly  plays  a  part  at  all.  Whatever  Tageblatt  is  in 
favour  with  the  Hausherr  comes  in  every  morning,  and 
is  stowed  away  tidily  in  a  corner  till  he  has  time  to 
look  at  it  while  he  drinks  his  coffee  and  smokes  his 
cigar.  If  the  ladies  of  the  household  are  inclined  that 
way  they  look  at  it  too.  But  there  really  is  not  much 
to  look  at  as  a  rule.  These  paragraphs  about  the  wicked 
British  that  seem  so  pugnacious  when  they  are  printed 
on  solid  English  paper  in  plain  English  words,  are 
often  in  a  corner  with  other  political  paragraphs  about 
other  wicked  nations.  At  times  of  crisis,  when  the 
leading  papers  are  attacking  us  at  great  length,  the 
Germans  themselves  will  talk  of  Zeitungsgeschrei  and 
shrug  their  shoulders.  It  is  absurd  to  deny  the 
existence  of  Anglophobia  in  Germany,  because  you  can 
hardly  travel  there  without  coming  across  isolated 
instances  of  it.  But  these  isolated  instances  will 
stand  out  against  a  crowded  background  of  people 
from  whom  you  have  received  the  utmost  kindness  and 
friendship ;  and  of  other  people  with  whom  your 
relations  have  been  fleeting,  but  who  have  been 
invariably  civil.  Unfortunately  the  German  Anglo- 
phobe  is  a  creature  of  the  meanest  breed,  and  he 
impresses  himself  on  the  memory  like  a  pain ;  so  that 
one  of  him  looms  larger  than  fifty  others,  just  as  the 
moment  will  when  you  had  your  last  tooth  out,  and 
not  the  summer  day  that  went  before  and  after.  The 


ODDS  AND  ENDS  311 

truth  is,  that  we  are  on  the  nerves  of  certain  Germans. 
You  may  live  for  ever  in  an  English  family  and  never 
hear  a  German  mentioned.  You  would  assuredly  not 
hear  the  nation  everlastingly  discussed  and  scolded. 
As  far  as  we  are  concerned,  they  are  welcome  to  their 
own  manners,  their  own  ways,  and  their  own  opinions. 
If  they  would  only  take  their  stand  on  these  and  leave 
ours  alone  we  could  meet  on  equal  terms.  But  that  is 
the  one  thing  this  particular  breed  of  German  cannot 
do.  He  must  be  always  arguing  with  you  about  the 
superiority  of  his  nation  to  yours,  and  you  soon  think  him 
the  most  tiresome  and  offensive  creature  you  ever  met. 
In  private  life  you  can  usually  avoid  him  and  seek  out 
those  charming  German  people  who,  even  if  their 
Tageblatt  teaches  them  that  they  should  hate  England, 
will  never  extend  their  hatred  to  the  English  stranger 
within  their  gates,  and  who  will  admit  you  readily  and 
kindly  to  their  pleasant  unaffected  lives.  Germany  is 
full  of  such  people,  whatever  the  German  newspapers 
are  saying. 

Presumably  every  country  has  the  press  that  suits  it, 
and  in  one  respect  German  journalism  is  more  dignified 
and  estimable  than  our  own.  It  does  not  publish 
columns  of  silly  society  gossip,  or  of  fashions  that  only  a 
duchess  can  follow  and  only  a  kitchen-maid  can  read. 
Nor  would  the  poorest,  smallest  provincial  Tageblatt 
descend  to  the  depths  of  musical  criticism  in  which  one 
of  our  popular  dailies  complacently  flounders  all  through 
the  London  season. 

"  I  cannot  tell  you  much  about  last  night's  Wagner 
opera,  because  to  my  great  annoyance  the  auditorium 
was  dark  nearly  all  the  time.  Once  when  we  were 
allowed  to  see  each  other  for  a  moment  I  noticed  that 
the  Duchess  of  Whitechapel  was  in  her  box,  looking  so 
lovely  in  cabbage  green.  Mrs. '  Dicky '  Fitzwegschwein 


312  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

was  in  the  stalls  with  a  ruby  necklace  and  a 
marvellous  coat  of  rose  velours  spangled  in  diamonds, 
and  on  the  grand  tier  I  saw  Lady  '  Bobby '  Holloway, 
who  is  of  course  the  daughter-in-law  of  Lord  Islington, 
in  black  net  over  silver,  quite  the  dernier  cri  this  season, 
and  looking  radiant  over  her  sister  Lady  Yolande's 
engagement  to  the  Duke  of  Bilgewater.  Richter 
conducted  with  his  usual  brilliance,  and  the  new  Wotan 
sang  with  great  eUan,  although  he  was  obviously  suffering 
from  a  cold  in  his  head." 

It  is  impossible  to  imagine  Berlin  waking  some  winter 
morning  to  find  such  a  "criticism"  as  this  on  its 
breakfast  table.  In  Germany,  people  who  understand 
music  write  about  music,  and  people  who  understand 
about  fashions  write  about  fashions,  and  the  two  subjects, 
both  of  them  interesting  and  important,  are  kept  apart. 
Society  journalists  who  write  about  Lady  Bobbies  and 
Mrs.  Fitzwegschweins  do  not  exist  yet  in  Germany, 
and  so  far  the  empire  seems  to  worry  along  quite 
comfortably  without  them.  I  once  asked  a  well-known 
English  journalist  who  is  of  German  birth,  why  one  of 
our  newspaper  kings  did  not  set  up  a  huge,  gossipy, 
frivolous  paper  in  Berlin,  and  it  was  explained  to  me 
that  it  would  be  impossible,  because  the  editor  and  his 
staff  would  probably  find  themselves  in  prison  in  a  week. 
What  we  understand  by  Freedom  of  the  Press  does  not 
exist  there. 

On  the  other  hand,  books  and  pamphlets  are 
circulated  in  Germany  that  would  be  suppressed  here ; 
and  the  stage  is  freer  than  our  own.  Monna  Vanna 
had  a  great  success  in  Berlin,  where  Mme.  Maeterlinck 
played  the  part  to  crowded  audiences.  Salome  is  now 
holding  the  stage  both  as  a  play  and  with  Richard 
Strauss'  music  as  an  opera ;  Gorky's  Nachtasyl  is 
played  year  after  year  in  Berlin.  Both  French  and 


ODDS  AND  ENDS  313 

German  plays  are  acted  all  over  Germany  that  could 
not  be  produced  in  England,  both  because  the  censor 
would  refuse  to  pass  them  and  because  public  opinion 
would  not  tolerate  them,  unless,  to  be  sure,  they  were 
played  in  their  own  tongues.  It  is  most  difficult  to 
explain  our  attitude  to  Germans  who  have  been  in 
London,  because  they  know  what  vulgar  and  vicious 
farces  and  musical  comedies  pass  muster  with  us,  and 
^indeed  are  extremely  popular.  It  is  only  when  a  play 
touches  the  deeps  of  life  and  shows  signs  of  thought 
and  of  poetry  that  we  take  fright,  and  by  the  lips  of  our 
chosen  official  cry,  "This  will  never  do."  Tolstoy,  Ibsen, 
Gorky,  Bernard  Shaw,  Oscar  Wilde,  Hauptmann,  and 
Otto  Ernst  are  the  modern  names  I  find  on  one  week's 
programme  cut  from  a  Berlin  paper  late  in  spring  when 
the  theatrical  season  was  nearly  over.  Besides  plays 
by  these  authors,  one  of  the  State  theatres  announced 
tragedies  by  Goethe,  Schiller,  and  a  comedy  by  Moliere. 
The  Merchant  of  Venice  was  being  played  at  one 
theatre  and  A  Midsummer  Nights  Dream  at  another; 
there  were  farces  and  light  operas  for  some  people,  and 
Wagner,  Gluck,  and  Beethoven  at  the  Royal  Opera 
House  for  others.  The  theatre  in  Germany  is  a  part 
of  national  life  and  of  national  education,  and  it  is 
largely  supported  by  the  State ;  so  that  even  in  small 
towns  you  get  good  music  and  acting.  The  Meiningen 
players  «nc  celebrated  all  over  the  world,  and  everyone 
who  has  read  Goethe's  Life  will  remember  how  actively 
and  constantly  he  was  interested  in  the  Weimar  stage. 
At  a  Stadt-  Theater  in  a  small  town  two  or  three  operas 
are  given  every  week,  and  two  or  three  plays.  Most 
people  subscribe  for  seats  once  or  twice  a  week  all 
through  the  winter,  and  they  go  between  coffee  and 
supper  in  their  ordinary  clothes.  Even  in  Berlin 
women  do  not  wear  full  dress  at  any  theatre. 


314  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

In  the  little  towns  you  may  any  evening  meet 
or  join  the  leisurely  stream  of  playgoers,  and  if  you 
enter  the  theatre  with  them  you  will  find  that  the 
women  leave  their  hats  with  an  attendant.  You  are  in 
no  danger  in  Germany  of  having  the  whole  stage  hidden 
from  you  by  flowers  and  feathers. 

Shakespeare  is  as  much  played  as  Goethe  and 
Schiller,  and  it  is  most  interesting  and  yet  most 
disappointing  to  hear  the  poetry  you  know  line  upon 
line  spoken  in  a  foreign  tongue.  Germans  say  that 
their  translation  is  more  beautiful  and  satisfying  than  the 
original  English ;  but  I  actually  knew  a  German  who 
kept  Bayard  Taylor's  Faust  by  his  bedside  because  he 
preferred  it  to  Goethe's.  I  think  there  is  something  the 
matter  with  people  who  prefer  translated  to  original 
poetry,  but  I  will  leave  a  critic  of  standing  to  explain 
what  ails  them.  I  have  never  met  a  German  who 
would  admit  that  Shakespeare  was  an  Englishman. 
They  say  that  his  birth  at  Stratford-on-Avon  was  a 
little  accident,  and  that  he  belongs  to  the  world.  They 
say  this  out  of  politeness,  because  what  they  really 
believe  is  that  he  belongs  to  Germany,  and  that  as 
a  matter  of  fact  Byron  is  the  only  great  poet  England 
has  ever  had.  I  am  not  joking.  I  am  not  even 
exaggerating.  This  is  the  real  opinion  of  the  German 
man  in  the  street,  and  it  is  taught  in  lessons  in  liter- 
ature. An  English  girl  went  to  one  of  the  best- 
known  teachers  in  Berlin  for  lessons  in  German,  and 
found,  as  she  found  elsewhere,  that  the  talk  incessantly 
turned  on  the  crimes  of  England  and  the  inferiority 
of  England. 

"  You  have  had  two  great  names,"  said  the  teacher, 
— "  two  and  no  more.  That  is,  if  one  can  in  any  sense 
of  the  word  call  Shakespeare  an  English  name  .  .  . 
Shakespeare  and  Byron,  .  .  .  then  you  have  finished. 


ODDS  AND  ENDS  315 

You  have  never  had  anyone  else,  and  Shakespeare  has 
always  belonged  more  to  us  than  to  you." 

The  English  girl  gasped,  for  she  knew  something  of 
her  own  literature. 

"But  have  you  never  heard  about  Chaucer,"  she 
asked,  "  or  of  the  Elizabethans,  or  of  Milton,  Keats, 
Shelley,  Wordsworth  .  .  .  ? " 

"  Reden  Sie  nicht,  reden  Sie  nicht !  "  cried  the  teacher, 
— "  I     never    allow   my    pupils     to    argue    with     me. 
"Shakespeare  and  Byron  .  .  .  no,  Byron  only,  .  .  .  then 
England  has  done." 

You  still  find  Byron  in  every  German  household 
where  English  is  read  at  all,  and  no  one  seems  to  have 
found  out  what  fustian  most  of  his  poetry  really  was. 
Ruskin  and  Oscar  Wilde  are  the  two  popular  modern 
authors,  and  the  novel-reading  public  chooses,  so  several 
booksellers  assured  me,  Marion  Crawford  and  Mrs. 
Croker.  I  could  not  hear  a  word  anywhere  of 
Stevenson  or  Rudyard  Kipling,  but  I  did  come  across 
one  person  who  had  enjoyed  Richard  Fever  el. 

"  Your  English  novels  are  rather  better  than  they 
used  to  be,  are  they  not  ?  "  said  a  lady  to  me  in  good 
faith,  and  I  found  it  a  difficult  question  to  answer, 
because  I  had  always  believed  that  we  had  a  long  roll 
of  great  novelists;  but  then,  I  had  also  thought  that 
England  had  a  few  poets. 

The  most  popular  German  novels  are  mostly 
translated  into  English,  and  all  German  novels  of 
importance  are  reviewed  in  our  papers.  So  English 
people  who  read  German  know  what  a  strong  reaction 
there  is  against  the  moonshine  of  fifty  years  ago.  The 
novels  most  in  vogue  exhibit  the  same  coarse,  but  often 
thoughtful  and  impressive,  realism  that  prevails  on  the 
stage  and  in  the  conversation  and  conduct  of  some  sets 
of  people  in  the  big  cities.  The  Tagebuch  einer 


316  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

Verlorenen  has  sold  75,000  copies,  and  it  is  the  story 
of  a  German  Kamelliendame  compared  with  whom 
Dumas'  lady  is  moonshine.  It  is  a  haunting  picture  of 
a  woman  sinning  against  the  moral  and  social  law,  and 
no  one  with  the  least  sense  or  judgment  could  put  it  on 
the  low  level  of  certain  English  novels  that  sell  because 
they  are  offensive,  and  for  no  other  reason  in  the  world. 
Aus  guter  Familie,  by  Gabrielle  Reuter,  is  another  re- 
markable novel,  and  I  believe  it  has  never  been  translated 
into  English.  It  presents  the  poignant  tragedy  of  a 
woman's  life  suffocated  by  the  social  conditions  obtaining 
in  a  small  German  town  where  a  woman  has  no  hope 
but  marriage,  and  if  she  is  poor  no  chance  of  marriage. 
It  is  one  of  the  most  sincere  books  I  ever  read.  Das 
Tagliche  Brod,  Klara  Viebig's  story  of  servant-life  in 
Berlin,  is  another  typical  novel  of  the  present  day,  and 
that  has  been  translated  for  those  amongst  us  who  do 
not  read  German.  I  choose  these  three  novels  for 
mention  because  they  are  written  by  women,  and 
because  they  are  brilliant  examples  of  the  modern  tone 
amongst  women.  If  you  want  the  traditional  German 
qualities  of  sentiment,  poetry,  formlessness,  and  dreamy 
childlike  charm,  you  must  read  novels  written  by  men. 
I  have  said  very  little  about  music  in  Germany, 
because  we  all  know  and  admit  that  it  reaches  heights 
there  no  other  nation  can  approach.  An  Englishman 
writing  about  Germany  lately  says  that  you  often  hear 
very  bad  music  there,  but  I  think  his  experience  must 
have  been  exceptional  and  unfortunate.  I  am  sure 
that  Germans  do  not  tolerate  the  vapid  dreary  drawing- 
room  songs  we  listen  to  complacently  in  this  country  ; 
for  in  England  people  often  have  beautiful  voices 
without  any  musical  understanding,  or  technical  facility 
without  charm.  I  suppose  such  cases  must  occur 
amongst  Germans  too,  and  in  the  end  one  speaks  of  a 


ODDS  AND  ENDS  317 

foreign  nation  partly  from  personal  experience,  which 
must  be  narrow,  and  partly  from  hearsay.  I  have  met 
Germans  who  were  not  musical,  but  I  have  never  met 
any  who  were  pleased  with  downright  bad  music.  On 
the  whole,  it  is  the  art  they  understand  best,  the  one  in 
which  their  instinctive  taste  is  sure  and  good.  You 
would  not  find  that  the  Byron  amongst  composers, 
whoever  he  may  be,  was  the  one  they  set  up  for  worship. 
Nor  do  you  find  the  street  of  a  German  city  or  suburb 
Infested  with  barrel-organs.  There  is  some  kind  of 
low  dancing  saloon  or  cafe  chantant  called  a  Tingl- 
Tangl  where  I  imagine  they  have  organs  and  grama- 
phones  and  suchlike  horrors,  but  then  unless  you 
chance  to  pass  their  open  windows  you  need  not  endure 
their  strains.  In  England,  even  if  we  are  fond  of 
music,  and  therefore  sensitive  to  jarring  sounds  and 
maudlin  melodies,  yet  in  the  street  we  cannot  escape 
the  barrel-organ  nor  in  the  house  the  drawing-room 
songs.  As  if  these  were  not  enough,  we  now  invite 
each  other  to  listen  to  the  pianotist  and  the  pianola. 

"  I  will  explain  my  country  to  you,"  said  the  artist 
one  day  when  I  had  expressed  myself  puzzled  by  the 
curious  gaps  in  German  taste,  and  even  in  German 
knowledge ;  by  their  enthusiasm  for  the  second  rate  in 
poetry  and  literature,  and  by  their  amazing  uncertain 
mixture  of  information  and  blank  complacent  ignorance. 
For  when  an  Englishman  says  "  Goethe  !  Schiller  ! — 
Was  is  das  ?  "  you  are  not  surprised.  It  is  just  what 
you  expect  of  an  Englishman,  and  for  all  that  he  may 
know  how  to  build  bridges  and  keep  his  temper  in 
games  and  argument.  But  when  a  German  teacher  of 
literature  tells  you  Byron  is  the  only  English  poet,  and 
when  the  whole  nation  neglects  some  of  our  big  men 
but  runs  wild  over  certain  little  ones,  you  listen  eagerly 
for  any  explanation  forthcoming.  "  We  have  Wissen" 


3i8  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

said  the  artist,  "  we  have  Kunst ;  but  we  have  no 
Kultur." 

I  did  not  recover  from  the  shock  he  gave  me  till  the 
evening,  when  I  saw  the  professor  of  philosophy  and 
aesthetics. 

"  The  artist  says  that  you  have  no  Kultur"  I  told 
him  ;  for  I  wanted  to  see  how  he  received  a  shock. 

"  The  artist  speaks  the  truth,"  said  the  professor 
calmly.  I  have  never  met  anyone  more  civilised  and 
scholarly  then  he  was  himself;  and  I  set  a  high  value 
on  his  opinion. 

"What  is  Kultur?"  I  asked. 

"  One  result  of  it  is  a  fine  discrimination,"  he  replied, 
"  a  fine  discrimination  in  art,  in  conduct,  and  in  manner." 

"  Are  you  not  the  most  intellectual  people  in  the 
world  ?  "  I  said  reproachfully. 

He  seemed  to  think  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  it. 

"  Are  you  still  worrying  your  head  about  Kultur  ?  " 
said  the  artist  next  time  I  saw  him.  "Then  I  will 
explain  a  little  more  to  you.  I,  as  you  know,  am 
extremely  anti-Semit" 

"  I  am  sure  that  is  not  a  proof  of  Kultur"  I  said 
hurriedly. 

"  It  is  not  a  proof  of  anything.  It  is  a  result. 
Nevertheless  I  perceive  that  if  it  were  not  for  the  Jews 
there  would  be  neither  art  nor  literature  in  Germany. 
They  create,  they  appreciate,  they  support,  and  although 
we  affect  to  despise  them  we  invariably  follow  them 
like  sheep.  What  they  admire  we  admire  ;  what  they 
discover  we  see  to  be  good.  But.  .  .  I  told  you  I  was 
anti-Semit)  .  .  .  though  they  have  most  of  the  brains 
in  the  country,  they  have  little  Kultur.  One  of  us  who 
is  as  stupid  as  an  ox,  .  .  .  most  of  us  are  as  stupid  as 
oxen,  .  .  .  may  have  more,  .  .  .  but  because  he  is 
stupid  he  cannot  impose  his  opinion  on  the  multitude." 


ODDS  AND  ENDS  319 

"  Do  you  mean  that  the  Jews  set  the  fashion  in  art 
and  literature,  and  that  they  sometimes  set  a  bad  one  ?  " 
I  asked. 

"  That  is  exactly  what  I  mean." 

It  was  a  curious  theory,  and  I  will  not  be  responsible 
for  its  truth.  But  there  is  no  doubt  that  in  every 
German  town  artistic  and  literary  society  has  its  centre 
amongst  the  educated  Jews.  They  are  most  generous 
hosts,  and  it  is  their  pleasure  to  gather  round  them  an 
aristocracy  of  genius.  The  aristocracy  that  is  perfectly 
happy  without  genius  would  as  a  rule  not  enter  a  Jew's 
house ;  though  the  poorer  members  of  the  aristocracy 
often  marry  a  Jew's  daughter.  Where  there  is  inter- 
marriage some  social  intercourse  is  presumably  inevit- 
able. But  the  social  crusade  against  Jews  is  carried 
on  in  Germany  to  an  extent  we  do  not  dream  of  here. 
The  Christian  clubs  and  hostels  exclude  them, 
Christian  families  avoid  them,  and  Christian  insults  are 
offered  to  them  from  the  day  of  their  birth.  "  What 
do  you  use  those  long  lances  for  ?  "  said  the  wife  of  a 
Jewish  professor  to  a  young  man  in  a  cavalry  regiment. 
" Damit  hetzen  wir  die  Juden"  said  he,  with  the  snarl 
of  his  kind ;  and  he  knew  very  well  that  the  lady's 
husband  was  a  Jew.  I  have  been  told  a  story  of  a 
Jewish  girl  being  asked  to  a  Court  ball  by  the  Emperor 
Frederick,  and  finding  that  none  of  the  men  present 
would  consent  to  dance  with  her.  I  have  heard  of 
girls  who  wished  to  ask  a  Jewish  schoolmate  to  a  dance, 
and  discovered  that  their  Christian  friends  flatly  refused 
to  meet  anyone  of  her  race.  How  any  Christians 
contrive  to  avoid  it  I  do  not  understand,  for  wherever 
you  go  in  Germany  some  of  the  great  scholars,  doctors, 
men  of  science,  art,  and  literature,  are  men  of  Jewish 
blood.  The  press  is  almost  entirely  in  their  hands, 
and  when  there  is  a  scurrilous  artist  or  a  coarse  picture 


320  HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 

your  friends  explain  it  by  saying  that  the  tone  of  that 
special  paper  is  jiidisch.  The  modern  campaign 
against  Jews  began  nearly  thirty  years  ago,  when  a 
Court  chaplain  called  Stocker  startled  the  world  by 
the  violence  of  his  invective.  But  the  fire  he  stirred 
to  flame  must  have  been  smouldering.  He  and.  his 
followers  gave  the  most  ingenuous  reasons  for  curtailing 
Jewish  rights  and  privileges  in  Germany,  one  of  which 
was  the  provoking  fact  that  Jewish  boys  did  more 
brilliantly  at  school  than  Christians.  The  subject 
bristles  with  difficulties,  and  no  one  who  knows  the 
German  Jew  intimately  will  wish  to  pose  him  as  a 
persecuted  saint.  The  Christian  certainly  makes  it 
unpleasant  for  him  socially,  but  in  one  way  or  the 
other  he  holds  his  own.  I  have  seen  him  vexed  and 
offended  by  some  brutal  slight,  but  his  keen  sense  of 
humour  helps  him  over  most  stiles.  So  no  doubt  does 
his  sense  of  power.  "  They  will  not  admit  me  to  their 
clubs  or  ask  my  daughters  to  their  dances,"  said  a 
Jewish  friend,  "  but  they  come  to  me  for  money  for 
their  charities."  And  I  knew  that  half  the  starving 
poor  in  the  town  came  to  his  wife  for  charity,  and  that 
she  never  sent  one  empty  away. 

When  a  very  clever,  sensitive,  numerically  small  race 
has  lived  for  hundreds  of  years  cheek  by  jowl  with  a 
dense  brutal  race  that  has  never  ceased  to  insult  and 
humiliate  it,  you  cannot  be  surprised  if  those  clever  but 
highly  sensitive  ones  become  imbued  in  course  of  time 
with  a  painful  undesirable  conviction  that  the  brutes 
are  their  superiors.  So  you  have  the  spectacle  in 
Germany  of  Jews  seeking  Christian  society  instead  of 
avoiding  it ;  and  you  hear  them  boast  quite  artlessly 
of  their  cliristlicJier  Umgang.  They  would  really  serve 
their  people  and  even  themselves  more  if  they  refused 
all  christlicher  Umgang  until  the  Christians  had  learned 


ODDS  AND  ENDS  321 

to  behave  themselves.  An  Englishwoman  living  in 
Berlin  told  me  that  once  as  she  came  out  of  a 
concert  hall  an  officer  standing  in  the  crowd  stared  at 
her  and  said,  so  that  everyone  could  hear :  "  At  last ! 
a  single  face  that  is  not  a  jildischer  Fratz"  The 
concert,  you  will  understand,  must  have  been  a  good 
one,  and  therefore  largely  attended  by  a  Jewish 
audience.  Possibly  the  officer  who  so  much  disliked 
his  surroundings  had  married  a  Jewish  heiress  and  was 
waiting  for  his  wife.  Such  things  happen.  During 
the  worst  times  of  Stocker's  campaign  a  woman  with 
Jewish  features  could  hardly  go  out  unescorted ;  and 
even  now,  though  it  is  not  openly  expressed,  you  can 
hardly  fail  to  catch  some  note  of  sympathy  with  the 
Russian  persecution  of  the  Jews.  The  deep  helpless 
genuine  horror  felt  in  England  at  the  pogroms  is  felt 
in  a  fainter  way  in  Northern  Germany. 

Meanwhile  the  Jewish  woman  of  the  upper  classes 
takes  her  revenge  by  knowing  how  to  dress.  In 
German  cities,  when  you  see  a  woman  who  is 
"  exquisite,"  slim  that  is  and  graceful,  dainty  from  head 
to  foot  and  finely  clad,  then  you  may  vow  by  all  the 
gods  that  she  has  Jewish  blood  in  her. 


21 


INDEX 


Advertisements,  85,  307 
Allotment  gardens,  207 
Anglophobia,  5,  119,  130,  184, 

309-3H 

Art  in  the  nursery,  1 1 
Auerbach,  272-278 


Backfischerfs  Leiden  und  Freu- 

den,  38-43 
Baden,   6,   22  (see  also  Black 

Forest) 

Badereise,  255-260 
Bathrooms,  103,  305 
Bavaria,  228,  231,  258,  273,  275 
Beds,  124,  229 
Beggars,  276,  295 
Berlin- 
Electric  cars,  300 

Fire-brigade,  275 

Flats  and  houses,  103-108 

Frobel  Haus,  12 

Ladies'  clubs,  75 

Philanthropy,  293 

Registry  offices,  142 

Restaurants,  233 

Sculptures,  297 


Berlin- 
Shops,  167-170,  174 
Students,  57 
Sunday  excursions,  207 
Taxes,  109 

Berliner  Zimmer,  305 

Bestes  Zimmer,  242 

Betham-Edwards,  Miss,  36 

Betrothals,  85-91 

Bier  Comment,  54-56 

Birmingham  brassworkers,  295 

Black  Forest,  162, 171,  205,  220, 
267  ff.  276 

Brautpaar,  87 

Budgets,    household,    187-194, 
283 

Biirgerliches  Gesetzbuch,  102 

Burschenschaft,  51 

Byron,  38,  314 


Cellar-shops,  170 
Charlottenberg  Forest   School, 

32 

Christmas,  176 
Church  tax,  109 
Confirmation,  78-80 


323 


324 


HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 


Cooking  classes,  72 
Corps-Studenten,  51-53 
Gotta,  Frl.  v.,  21 
Cottbus  Market,  174 
Cr&ches,  10,  33 


Dicnstbuch)  142-145 
Divorce,  100 
Doctors,  9,  31,  72,  295 
Doecker  system,  33 
Drawing-rooms,  126 
Drunkenness,  206 
Duels,  students',  51-53 
Dyrenfurth  Gertrud,  282 


Economy,   130,    178,   188,   243, 

287 

Eltzbacher,  O.,  93,  185 
Emigration,  185,  263 
Emperor  Wilhelm  II.,  70,  218, 

220 
Empress  Friedrich,  21,  71 

Family  life,  61,  65,  128 
Flachsmann  als  Erzieher,  17 
Flats,  103,  123,  130,  304 
Food- 
Family  meals,  154 

Fish,  161 

Free  food,  31,  50 

Goose,  162 

Meat,  160 

Mehlspeisett)  164,  231 

Nudeln,  159 

Ochsenfleisch,  155 


Food- 
Recipes,  159-165 
Rothe  Grutze^  164 
Supper,  158,  203 
Tea,  158 
Vegetables,  163 

Freiburg  Market,  173 

Fuel,  1 06,  187 

Furniture,  123-126 


"  Garden  houses,"  304 

Gardens,  104 

"  German  Home  Life,"  8,  93 

Gipsies,  276 

Goethe,  116,  260 

Gymnasium,  15-19 

Gymnastics,  31,  34,  220 


Hamburg — 

Life,  105,  155,  232 

Lodgings,  242 

Markets,  174 

Servants'  dress,  138 

Sports,  219 
Heidelberg,  51-53 
Hofi  the,  104,  1 08 
Home-workers,  289-291 
Hospitality,  43,  196  ff.,  210 
Hospitals,  295 
House-keeping    budgets,    187- 

194,  283 
House-porter,  108,  303 


Idealistin^  Memoir  en  einer,  78, 
125,  131,  139,  180,  212-214 


INDEX 


325 


Illegitimate  children,  93,  294 
Incomes,    48,     177 ;    and    see 

Economy 
Inns  and  Innkeepers,  227-232 


Jews,  50,  80,  289,  319-321 
Joseph  im  Schnee,  278-281 


Kaffee  Klatsch,  90,  200-202 
Kindergarten,  12-14 
Kirchiveih,  273 

Kitchens,  34,  107,  132-134,  146 
Kneipe,  54-56,  64,  128 
Kommers,  56 


Ladies'  clubs,  75-77 
Landes  tax,  109 
Lange,  Frl.  Helene,  22-27 
Laundry  work,  136 
Leipziger  Messe,  175 
Lette-Verein,  71-75 
Linen,  135-137 
Lodgings,  237  ff 
Loeper-Housselle,  Marie,  23 
Luggage  on  railways,  261 
Lyceum  Club,  76 
Lyceum,  Victoria,  21 


Marketing,  133-228 
Markets,  173-176,  306 
Marriage — 
Arranged,  68,  80-82 
Ceremony,  94  ff 


Marriage — 

Proposal,  84 

Revolt  against,  66,  83 
Miinchhausen,  Frau  K.,  167 
Music,  31,  206,  303,  316 


Newspapers,  307-312 
Novels,  315 
Nurseries,  9-11 


Oberhof,  257 
Opera,  209 
Outdoor  life,  222 


Peasants'  costume,  268 

Dances,  272-274 

Weddings,  269-272 
Pensions,  old  age,  30,  1 50 
Pestalozzi  Frobel  Haus,  12 
Philanthropy,  293-296 
Police  regulations,  108, 151,  169, 

245-249 
Polterabend,  92 
Professors'  salaries,  48 
Prussia — 

Cost  of  schools,  17 

Free  schools,  31 

Taxes,  109 


Railway  travelling,  260-263 
Religious  teaching,  19 

belief,  211-216 

Rents,  103 


326 


HOME  LIFE  IN  GERMANY 


Restaurants,  233-235 
Reuter,  Gabrielle,  82 
Riehl  on  women,  57  ff 
Riigen,  257 


Salamander,  56 
Saxony,  108 
Scenery,  250  ff 
Schadchan,  80 
Schlegel,  Caroline,  95 
Schmidt,  Auguste,  23 
Schools — 

Cost  of,  17 

Elementary,  29-31 

Forest,  32-35 

Kinds  of,  16,  20,  22 

Lessons,  18 

Medical  inspection,  31,  34 

Music  in,  31 

Religious  teaching  in,  19 
Servants — 

Bedrooms,  151 

Costumes,  10,  138,  183 

Dances,  148 

Gratuities,  145,  149 

Meals,  147 

Pensions,  150 

Wages,  140,  145 
Shadwell,  Dr.,  287 
Shakespeare,  314 
Shops — 

Cellar,  170 

In  Berlin,  167-170 

In  Black  Forest,  171 
Silesian  village,  282-285 
Skittles,  222 


Sofa,  126 

Sports,  winter,  220 

State  tax,  109 

Steckkissen,  7 

Stiff e,  27,69-71,76 

Stoves,  106-108 

Students,  47  ff 

Stiize  der  Hausfrau,  73,  151 

Summer  resorts,  250  ff. 

Sundays,  205  ff 

"Sweating,"  289-291 

Swimming-baths,  219 

Tafel-Lieder,  97-99 

Taine,  M.,  117,  149 

Taxes,  108 

Teachers'  seminaries,  21 

Theatres,  208-210,  312-314 

Thuringia,  229,  276 

Tidiness,  37,  128-130,  135,  306 

Titles,  126 

Toys,  ii 

Trousseaux,  89,  123,  140 

Universities,  47  ff. 

Vereine,  221 
Victoria  Lyceum,  21 
Viebig,  Klara,  141,  170,  316 
Village  fires,  274-276 
Visits,  196-200 
Volkskiiche,  291 

Walking  tours,  organised,  253 
Weddings,  92  ff,  268-272 
Weibliche  Angestellte,  292 


INDEX 


327 


Wertheim,  167-170 
Wickelkinder,  8 
Windows,  105 
Winter  sports,  220 
Women — 

Dress,  154,  195 
Legal  position,  101 


Women — 

Modern,  66,  82-84 
Riehl  on,  57  ff 
Single,  60-62,  75,  81 
Treatment  of,  60,  63,  65,  117- 

122 
Working,  287  ff 


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